THEATRE + COMEDY

The Country Playhouse Black Box Productions presents  Brilliant Traces, by Cindy Lou Johnson.  Directed by Bonnie Hewett. Running October 15 through October 30.

First presented by New York's prestigious Circle Repertory Company, this richly imaginative, absurdist allegory uses fantastic and often outlandish situations and characterizations to probe into the nature of modern relationships, both sexual and otherwise.

The place is a remote cabin in the wilds of Alaska. As a blizzard rages outside Henry Harry lies sleeping under a heap of blankets. Suddenly, he is awakened by the insistent knocking of an unexpected visitor – Rosannah DeLuce, escaping from Arizona, a fugitive from her impending marriage – who bursts into the cabin dressed in full bridal regalia.

Exhausted, she throws herself on Henry's mercy, but after sleeping for two days straight, her vigor—and combativeness—return. Both characters, it would appear, have been wounded and embittered by life, and both are refugees from so-called civilization.

"BRILLIANT TRACES is kooky, weird and definitely off-kilter, but if taken in the right spirit, illuminating about how we live today." —BackStage.

"…deals with common issues of love and family, and does so with characters, story and dialogue so fantastic that they could exist only within the enchanted realm of the stage." —New York Times.

"BRILLIANT TRACES is one of those plays in which a man and woman battle it out in a small enclosed space, alternately repulsing and seducing each other." —The New Yorker.

Presented by Black Box Productions at Country Playhouse. Country Playhouse is proud to announce that it has been voted through Houston Community Newspapers as Best Community Theatre of 2010.

Pictured:  Wade Gonsoulin as Henry Harry and Elizabeth Marshall as Rosannah De Luce. Photograph copyright Bonnie Hewett 2010.