New York currently swelters in what will probably be the last heat wave of the summer, and the city slows in anticipation of the Labor Day holiday — as do I. At the moment I am contenting myself with once again reading Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, which opened at the Henry Miller Theater on 4 February 1938 following a preview at Princeton’s McCarter Theater on 22 January of the same year. (It is a play much admired by Edward Albee, as he mentioned in Alexis Soloski’s interview with the dramatist published in the Village Voice last week.)

This will no doubt surprise some people, but after many years of reading European drama almost exclusively, I thought a look back to my own shores would be of interest. As I prepare the production of What She Knew and the manuscript of Word Made Flesh, roughly in that order, I’ll be revisiting those American plays that I last read decades ago — particularly with an eye to how the paths and ideas laid out in Word Made Flesh are reflected in the drama of my own country. If these paths and ideas are intrinsic to theatre and drama, as I believe they are, they are as intrinsic to the American landscape as they are to that of Europe or anywhere else.

I must say I’m looking forward to this: it’s been some time since I’ve read or seen these plays (and I’ll sadly miss the highly-regarded David Cromer production of Our Town, which is scheduled to close on 12 September; time and the wallet, that dastardly duo, do not permit), and having more recently explored the history of contemporary British drama in books by Dan Rebellato, David Ian Rabey and Aleks Sierz, I’m interested to see how the threads they weave connect with drama on American shores. How these individual plays emerged from the postwar American theatre, particularly from the energies that circulate among Broadway, off-Broadway, off-off-Broadway and regional theatres — as the British plays I’ve recently read emerged from the energies that circulated among the National Theatre, the Royal Court and other British mainstays — is an intriguing question.

Waiting for Lefty, A Streetcar Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, The Iceman Cometh, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — a heady list, but no doubt I will find more here now than I did twenty years ago. I’ll post on these, but not until after the holiday.

Sophie Treadwell

A rare chance to see a landmark piece of American drama begins this Wednesday, 1 September, when Zephyer Rep presents Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 drama Machinal at the Wings Theatre, 154 Christopher Street. Based on the real-life case of murderess Ruth White, the play, along with Elmer Rice’s The Adding Machine, is perhaps the best-known example of the American flavor of German Expressionism, and Treadwell, along with Susan Glaspell, among the undersung female playwrights of the first half of the 20th century.

Machinal runs through 11 September. More information on the show at the theatreonline Web site here.

Along with its annual full production, Red Bull Theater also offers a series called “Revelation Readings,” featuring readings of both new and old plays that reflect the theatre’s mission of “specializing in plays of heightened language,” primarily but not exclusively in those of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. The 2010–2011 season of readings has just been announced, and it’s rich with unmissable events: René Auberjonois and Michael Urie in W. Somerset Maugham’s Our Betters, Friedrich Schiller’s Don Carlos, Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy, Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom, and a new version of Strindberg’s Creditors, adapted and directed by Doug Wright and featuring Bill Camp.

And, on Monday 29 November, in collaboration with The Barker Project, Wrestling School associate and Howard Barker specialist Richard Romagnoli will direct a reading of Barker’s Gertrude — The Cry, featuring the brilliant performers Jan Maxwell and F. Murray Abraham. Those who dropped by theatre minima’s Howard Barker at the Segal Center event this past May got a small preview when Maxwell read a brief scene from the play under the direction of Red Bull’s artistic director Jesse Berger (and now I know that it was F. Murray Abraham lurking around in the Segal Center shadows that evening). Expect fireworks.

The full schedule of “Revelation Readings” events can be found here.

Thomas Bernhard

Now, this is news, and it just may break my exile from theatregoing next month: the New York premiere of a play by the acerbic, provocative Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989). Toronto’s One Little Goat Theatre Company brings its production of Bernhard’s 1986 play Ritter, Dene, Voss to LaMaMa ETC’s First Floor Theatre, opening 23 September and running through 10 October. Adam Seelig, artistic director of One Little Goat, directs the production (the 2006 Toronto opening of which constituted the English-language premiere). From the press release:

In Ritter, Dene, Voss (named for the three actors who premiered the original 1986 production in German), Thomas Bernhard explores sexual repression and sibling rivalry with characteristic tenacity and wit. The play involves two sisters — both actresses — and their attempts at reintegrating their volatile brother into their home. The brother, a tormented genius (loosely based on last century’s great, idiosyncratic philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein), has just returned from a mental health institute, complicating the dynamics between the three siblings.

After premiering at the Salzburg Festival in 1986, the original production then moved to Vienna’s Burgtheater (which you can see at the upper right of this page), where it was revived every two years over the next decade.

Ritter, Dene, Voss can be found in the collection of Bernhard plays entitled Histrionics, which appears to be out-of-print. However, this is a good time to mention that several volumes of Bernhard’s other work  — as well as Heldenplatz, his final and perhaps most controversial play — are now appearing in English for the first time; Rhys Tranter has a rundown of these titles here.

For a sample, see the trailer for the One Little Goat production of Ritter, Dene, Voss here:

And, as an added treat, an excerpt from the original German-language production:

UPDATE: A Fringe administrator and Jason Zinoman trade comments at Matthew Freeman’s post on the issue. (Matt’s latest work, Brandywine Distillery Fire, created with Michael Gardner, will open the fall season at the Incubator Arts Project in September.)

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“Complaining about the Fringe … is part of its tradition,” says Jason Zinoman in today’s New York Times about the annual New York International Fringe Festival, which is just ending its 2010 edition (along with its transatlantic counterpart, the Edinburgh Fringe). His thoughts are especially pertinent; Jason is perhaps the New York Times reviewer most familiar with the downtown theatre community and has a reputation for balanced and informed judgment, so when he complains, it’s notable. A few of his notes on this year’s festival:

As I have visited much more audience-friendly Fringes in Edinburgh and Philadelphia, however, the New York International Fringe Festival now appears needlessly bland and poorly organized. It also does no favors for the reputation of downtown theater. We deserve better. …

When you present 200 productions that are quickly put together, there will be bad work. I may have had poor luck this go-round, but over the years the kind of bad shows at the Fringe has changed. They are now usually failures of ambition and imagination as much as craft. … What I worry is that while Off-Off Broadway throbs with energy, ambition and the finest low-budget experimental theater scene in the world, you would likely never know that from attending the New York International Fringe Festival.

The full text of Jason’s article can be found here.