2007 OOTE Festival
Oedipus at Palm Springs
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Guide to Life
Five Lesbian Brothers Four-Plays
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Edge
The Boston Globe(review 2)
Edge(review 2)
ABOUT THE FIVE LESBIAN BROTHERS AND THIS PRODUCTION:
For this production of Oedipus at Palm Springs, The Brothers are taking the exciting step of recruiting new actors to become part of our production ensemble. With the generous collaboration of Theater Offensive, which is acting as a supporting presenter in this unique endeavor, The Five Lesbian Brothers' Ladies Auxiliary, will be instated for this entirely new production of Oedipus at Palm Springs. After premiering the show in the fall at Theater Offensive's annual festival, Out on the Edge, The Brothers will book a tour for the resulting new version of the show.
Oedipus at Palm Springs Synopsis
Two lesbian couples in long term relationships meet for a weekend of fun and sun away from their busy lives in Los Angeles. Set in "an exclusive desert resort for women", the four friends attempt to recapture their more carefree days, when things like mortgages, child-rearing and career focus were not in the picture. Con and Fran have been together 17 years and are using the weekend to try and reconnect sexually after focusing their energies on their new son. Prin and Terri have been together seven years and Prin seems finally ready to commit to Terri, who is struggling to find her birth mother. The mixture of sunshine, golf, outlet shopping, cocktails and a little soothsaying from Joni, the blind innkeeper, bring tensions to the surface and a birthday surprise turns the four friends' weekend getaway into an unforeseen tragedy.
The Five Lesbian Brothers are Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey and Lisa Kron. They came together as a theater company in 1989 after performing together in various combinations at NYC's Obie-award-winning WOW Cafe Theatre. They create provocative lesbian theater for the masses through the fine feminist art of collaboration. Their work has been seen on stages all over lower Manhattan, London, Zagreb, on In the Life, as well as in theatres all over the US.
THEATRICAL REPERTOIRE
Their repertoire includes five full-length plays, Voyage to Lesbos, Brave Smiles, The Secretaries, Brides of the Moon and Oedipus at Palm Springs, as well as numerous event-specific acts. Their work has been produced Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway and beyond by New York Theatre Workshop, The Joseph Papp Public Theatre, the WOW Cafe Theatre, Downtown Art Company, Performance Space 122, Dixon Place, La Mama, the Kitchen and the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Brothers have toured their work to London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Houston, Columbus, Seattle, Philadelphia, Boston and the deep woods of Michigan. Their plays have also been produced by other companies throughout the United States and, believe it or not, in Zagreb, Croatia.
BEYOND THE STAGE
In addition to their theatrical work, the Brothers have also written a book of lesbian humor for Simon and Schuster and three short films for HBO. They were selected, along with Kiki and Herb and Tammy Faye Starlight, to host episodes of "Late Night Out" on the Showtime Network. Their work is taught in theater and queer/feminist studies courses in universities throughout the U.S.
An anthology of the Brothers' plays entitled Five Lesbian Brothers/Four Plays was published in 2000 by Theatre Communications Group.
AWARDS
The Brothers are the recipients of a 2005 GLAAD Media Award (Best New Play, Broadway or Off-Broadway), a Village Voice Obie Award, a New York Dance and Performance Award ("Bessie"), and a New York Press Award as Best Performance Group
ARTISTS' STATEMENT
The style of the Brothers' work is to walk along a fine line between broadly comic choices and carefully observed, sincere emotion. Our outsider experience as lesbians has lead us to make an aesthetic in which caricatured cultural extremes are grounded in universally recognizable human motivations. We make work that is simultaneously fantastical and perfectly realistic. We write collaboratively which is part of what gives our plays their densely layered texture.
Over our long creative relationship, we have established a synergistic technique in which we build upon each other's imaginations as well as synthesizing our relationships with each other and the stuff of our everyday lives into dramatic material. Ultimately our work always tackles big themes such as internalized sexism and homophobia, the corrupting influence of corporate culture, and sexual obsession.
We bring our trademark sense of humor to whatever subject we examine. We are equitable in our parody, skewering homosexuals and feminism with the same vigor we apply to mainstream culture.
While not overtly political, our work becomes political before an audience because it is made based on our perspective and the assumptions we hold as lesbians and women who are outside the mainstream culture, and even (sad to say) outside the mainstream theater culture. It is further made so by the nature of its collaborative creation which has its roots in feminist collective ideals.
Photo Credit: Joan Marcus
Pictured: Original Cast in the World Premiere performance at New York Theatre Workshop, co-commissioned by The Theater Offensive with National Performance Network and OutNorth