Short Synopsis:
Moving from comic buffoonery to sublime choral hymns, Theatre Group Dzieci’s signature piece features a motley group of medieval village idiots, forced to enact their own Mass. Long Synopsis:
Fools Mass is set during the Plague years of the 16th century. A group of village idiots enacts their own Mass due to the sudden death of their beloved pastor, who had given them shelter and trained them to sing. Despite the solemn premise, the piece is full of buffoonery and comic audience participation. Layered with choral singing of sacred hymns and chants, Fools Mass travels from the ridiculous to the sublime. This season marks the 10th anniversary of Fools Mass, as well as the 10th anniversary of the death of Jerzy Grotowski, the father of Dzieci's theatrical lineage. It is no accident that the mythic priest of this seminal work is named Father Jerzy: the piece is both a tribute and a memorial to Grotowski.

"Moving easily between the sublime and the ridiculous, drawing its audience through laughter toward participation and contemplation, the work resists being categorized as either theater or religion, becoming both at once in an event experienced by many as transformative." -The Encyclopedia of Religion 2005

"The lovely singing voices help give a quality of holiness that lets this performance really ring of simple souls reaching for the divine." - nytheatre.com

"Dzieci is a wonderful example of the spiritual intensity possible when theatre engages the age-old mysteries of faith and the human experience." - Canon Tom Miller, Cathedral St. John the Divine

8 pm, Thursday April 16
8 pm, Friday April 17
8 pm, Saturday April 18
2:30 pm, Sunday April 19th

La MaMa E.T.C. First Floor Theatre
74 East 4th Street
N,R to 8th St / 6 to Astor / F to 2nd Ave
Tickets $18 / Students $13

Special preview performance: Saturday, April 11th at midnight - The Cell Theatre, 338 West 23rd Street - $15 suggested donation

For further information:
lamama.org / dziecitheatre.org
dzieci@dziecitheatre.org
718 638 6037

Read more about Dzieci Experimental Theatre Ensemble

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2009