By Marion Filler
Live theater needs some PPE, and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey has just the ticket.
Pandemic Playhouse Entertainment opens this Friday, Jan. 15, 2021, presenting Shaw! Shaw! Shaw!, a group of three plays filmed live on stage, for viewing online.
The series runs for two weeks and offers rarely performed plays by George Bernard Shaw, seen last fall on the Shakespeare Theatre’s Back Yard Stage by a pandemic- limited audience.
For $10 per show or $25 for all three, anyone now may stream the productions on a computer, iPad, phone, or smart TV.
Director Bonnie Monte describes PPE as a retro idea, inspired by television programs from the 1950s such as Playhouse 90, Philco Playhouse and Masterpiece Playhouse. Those early productions brought great scripts to life on a Hollywood sound stage, and aired them for audiences across the nation.
Video: Bonnie Monte introduces Pandemic Playhouse Entertainment:
“This is not only a chance to let the authors’ words, our superb company of actors, and the creative team behind them take the spotlight again, but it will provide thousands of people with more of the much-needed ‘medicine’ that the arts provide,” says Monte, who marked her third decade with the Madison-based Shakespeare Theatre last year.
Shaw! Shaw! Shaw! begins with Overruled, a witty four-character comedy, about the many possibilities of infidelity. It runs for approximately 42 minutes.
Next is Village Wooing, is among the best known of Shaw’s one-act plays. A romantic comedy beginning on an ocean liner, it spans three separate conversations in the space of one year, and takes a man and a woman around the world before they find each other again in a small country village. This one is also under one hour.
Last but not least, Passion, Poison and Petrifaction or The Fatal Gazogene, at only 20 minutes long, is Shaw’s utterly nonsensical, outrageous farce that pokes fun at Victorian melodramas. It’s a slapstick romp with a cast of seven that includes a psychic maid, a chorus of singing angels, and a threatening thunderstorm. What a way to escape reality!
Tickets can be purchased here, with instructions on how to access the plays online. libraries, colleges, and community groups also can book group viewings; call 973-408-5600 or email here. Prices of future shows may vary.
