SPAM

by Rafael Spregelburd

SPAM hops us out-of-order through thirty days in the life of a lost Italian linguistics professor who has awakened in a cheap hotel room in Malta with a bump on his head and no memories. A copy of Camus’ L’Etranger in his front pocket and the spam e-mails on his laptop are all he has to regain his identity. With a light touch and a dizzying intellect, Spregelburd spins an absurd apocalyptic fantasy that incorporates James Bond and the swirling island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, wrestling not only with our chronically overstuffed inboxes, but with one man’s attempt at self-rescue in the face of the flood of consumer goods and media items that our late-capitalist civilization is generating with ever more speed.

Argentine playwright, director and movie actor RAFAEL SPREGELBURD (text), is one of the most celebrated theatre makers to emerge from Latin America in the last decade. Commissioned plays: Royal Court Theatre (London), Deutsches Schauspielhaus (Hamburg), Akademie Schloß Solitude (Stuttgart), École des Maîtres (Udine, Reims, Coimbra, Liege); invited playwright/director: Schaubüne (Berlin), Theaterhaus (Stuttgart), Chapter Arts Center (Cardiff), Badisches Staatstheater (Karlsruhe), Transquinquennal (Brussels). His works have been translated into over a dozen languages and performed at the National Theatre Studio (London), Théâtre de Chaillot (Paris), Stuttgart Staatstheater, Centro Cultural Helénico (Mexico City), Munich Kammerspiele, Chaos Theater (Vienna) and Frankfurt Schauspiel, and his own translations of Kane, Ravenhill, Berkoff, Shawn, Pinter, and others have been produced throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Awards/prizes: Madrid’s Tirso de Molina world playwrights’ prize, Casa de la Américas in Cuba, Ubú prize in Italy, Barcelona Critics’ Prize, María Guerrero prize, Trinidad Guevara prize, Clarín prize, and numerous others.

SAMUEL BUGGELN (Director) is a Canadian director and translator. He is the Artistic Director of The Cherry, a theatre company based in Brooklyn and Ithaca NY, focused on hyper-local, international, and formally innovative texts. Sam has directed over 20 productions at numerous regional theatres; in NYC he regularly develops new work at the Lark and is an Artistic Associate at the New Ohio Theatre. Works directed there (and at the old Ohio) include Cressida Among the Greeks (Drama Desk nomination); original adaptations of works by Marguerite Duras and Raymond Queneau; the world première of an award-winning play from Bulgaria; and Hater, his unconventional translation of Le Misanthrope. Hater has been produced by two universities and published in The Mercurian, as was Sam’s translation of Marivaux’ The School for Mothers. Sam recently co-translated works by Argentine playwrights Santiago Loza and Rafael Spregelburd, the former of which were developed at the Lark and the latter taught at the Chapin School and Pace University.

VIN KNIGHT (performer) is a long-time member of Elevator Repair Service (2012 Obie for Sustained Excellence) and has appeared in the U.S. and internationally in its productions of Gatz; The Sound and the Fury; The Select (The Sun Also Rises); Arguendo; and Fondly, Collette Richland, among others. Other stage credits include Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2013 Broadway revival), Marie Antoinette (ART and Yale Rep), Our Man in Havana (Portland Stage), The Temperamentals (Barrow Group) and U.S. Drag (Clubbed Thumb). Film and TV credits include “Younger,” “Louie” and “Robot Stories.”

DIRECTIONS: JACK is located at 505 1/2 Waverly Ave. in Brooklyn between Fulton St. and Atlantic Ave. in Clinton Hill. A 15-minute walk from BAM or the Barclay’s Center, Jack is easily accessible by taking the C or G train to the Clinton-Washington stop. There is free street parking available on Waverly Ave.