Grim Workplace Comedy, Below the Belt, Returns to NYC Oct. 1

By Kenneth Jones
01 Oct 2009

Below the Belt, Richard Dresser's comedy about soulless workers, gets an Off-Off-Broadway revival by The Rock Garden — the troupe that employs a lengthy rehearsal process — Oct. 1-25 in Manhattan.

Below the Belt had its world premiere at the Humana Festival of New American Plays, and has been seen around the country and Off-Broadway. The play is billed as "a timeless indictment of the quiet desperation that grows wild within the American Industry's Byzantine system of power and the corrupt desperados that maintain it. What we have here is the disturbingly drastic story of three dim-witted men determined to survive their pathetic jobs on an isolated industrial compound somewhere in the middle of a vast foreign desert."

Opening is Oct. 4. Performances play the Access Theater, 380 Broadway (at White Street in Tribeca, three blocks below Canal).

Larry Preston directs Chad Brigockas as Hanrahan, Ara Shehigian as Dobbitt and Preston as Merkin.

The creative team includes lighting designer Alan Baron, set designer Casper De la Torre and costume designer Jackie Hillenbrand.

Dresser's plays include A View of the Harbor (2008), The Pursuit of Happiness (2007) and Augusta (2006) — which make up his trilogy concerning the search for happiness in America — plus Rounding Third, Gun-Shy, Wonderful World, Something in the Air, The Downside, Alone at the Beach and Better Days. Dresser wrote the book for the Beach Boys musical Good Vibrations. He is currently writing the book for Red Sox Nation, "a musical tragedy about the Boston Red Sox."

The playing schedule is Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 PM, Sundays at 2 PM.

Tickets are $18. For reservations, visit www.SmartTix.com or call (212) 868-4444.

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The Rock Garden "was conceived with the aim of bringing the highest degree of perception and detail to the life of the play," according production notes. "Throughout the extended rehearsal period, director and actors employ a variety of techniques, research and experiment. In the tradition of the Moscow Art Theatre and the Actors Studio, the company might spend a year or more working on a project in order to ultimately reveal the depth of understanding and moment-to-moment experience envisioned by the playwright." The company was created by alumni of Elaine Aiken and Lily Lodge's Actors Conservatory, an outgrowth of the Strasberg School and the Actors Studio. "Dissatisfied with the limitations and quick turnover of much of theatre production in the city, this group is devoting more time and greater focus to their single projects."