The West Coast premiere of Underneath, written and performed by Olivier Award winner Pat Kinevane—known for his previous solo works Forgotten and Silent—has a limited engagement beginning October 14 at the Odyssey Theatre.
Presented by Odyssey Theatre Ensemble and Fishamble: The New Play Company, Underneath performs through October 30.
Directed by Jim Culleton, artistic director of Dublin’s Fishamble and director of both Forgotten and Silent, the engagement also includes two performances of Silent, which garnered the 2016 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement following its run at London’s Soho Theatre.
Underneath, according to press notes, “is a blackly comic, rich and vivid tale of a life lived in secret. Like Forgotten and Silent, it is a testament to the people who live under the nose of everyday life. It explores the surface—and what lies underneath. Is beauty really only skin deep? Does ugliness hide somewhere deeper? The three plays are aligned stylistically as well as thematically.”
According to Kinevane, “Underneath is about a woman, now dead in her tomb, who reflects back over her life, re-imagining and reliving her journey. She remembers how society punished her because of how she looked, and how she punished herself, and that whole relationship between beauty and ugliness and life and death and cruelty and kindness and how they all ultimately mash each other up and celebrate each other, but also destroy each other.”
“You’re invited as an audience member to come in and spend 90 minutes in the tomb of this woman whose body is decomposing, but whose mind is active and who has a vicious sense of humor and a fierce anger and a huge big heart, and is full of warmth and love,” added Culleton.
Underneath received the Scotsman Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival and a Best Theater Award from the Adelaide Fringe. Odyssey Theatre Ensemble and Fishamble present the West Coast premiere in association with Georganne Aldrich Heller and with the support of Culture Ireland as part of the Ireland 2016 Centenary Programme.
Original music for Underneath is composed by Denis Clohessy. The choreography adviser is Emma O’Kane, costumes are by Catherine Condell, and the stage manager is Beth Mack. Beth Hogan produces for Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, and Eva Scanlan produces for Fishamble.
Performances of Underneath will not take place October 21 and October 28, on which dates Silent will be performed. There will be one preview performance of Underneath October 13.
Odyssey Theatre is located at 2055 S. Sepulveda Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA. For more information and tickets, call (310) 477-2055 ext. 2 or visit OdysseyTheatre.com.
(Updated October 14, 2016)
