THEATER & PERFORMANCE
The Language of Love
After weeks of rehearsals and rewrites — and even blogging for us in our Just Passing Through blog — local playwright Aditi Kapil is finally debuting two of her works this evening. The first, Love Person, directed by Risa Brainin, isn’t your ordinary love story — about physical attraction, social structure, and sexual orientation — but rather a love story about language and communication. "I was researching Sanskrit," writes Kapil in her February 5th blog post, "and it struck me that there is a similarity between
the two
languages. Something about the sentence structure, and how direct they
are, straightforward yet poetic. And I began to wonder if it is
possible for two people to
fall in love on the basis of language alone. Because they understand
each other in some deep way that for instance English speakers can’t.
And how interesting it would be if those two people were a Deaf lesbian
and an isolated Sanskrit professor. 20 some drafts later here we are,
gearing up for the world premiere." Don’t miss out on this beautiful "language-laden love mystery."
7:30 p.m., Mixed Blood Theater, 1501 South Fourth St., Minneapolis; 612-338-0937; $10, but be sure to check out our special Rake reader offer.
MORE THEATER & PERFORMANCE
A Circus about Water
always has something interesting, creative, and colorful to offer. So
give them a script by Aditi Kapil to work with, and
they’re bound to make magic — magic out of magic. Sound good? As always
— though Heart of the Beast never fails to prove that puppts aren’t
just for kids — they serve up a nice social message as well. The
subject: water. Learn about public water works, the Mississippi
watershed, stewardship of our water commons, and the bottled water
industry (the evil water bottle industry — I cry when I take out my
recycling and see all those nasty water bottles). But this is no boring
little lecture; Beneath the Surface is an all-out puppet extravaganza, in full Heart of the Beast style. "I love this show;
it’s a circus about water," wrote Kapil in our Just Passing Through blog after attending a rehearsal a
couple weeks ago "Man, were they funny! No, wait, this is what I
actually love about
puppeteers! I may have written the script, I may know exactly where
they’re headed, but their minds just work differently from most people,
and they take me by surprise and crack me up every time!"
7:30 p.m., In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, 1500 East Lake St., Minneapolis; 612-721-2535; pay what you can.
Peace Crimes
increasingly high death toll, eight Minnesotans raided area draft
offices to destroy draft cards and spare their fellow Minnesotans from
the horrors of what they knew to be an unjust war. Dubbed the
"Minnesota Eight" by the local press, the protesters were
nabbed by the FBI, tried and convicted for conspiracy against their
country, and locked up in a federal prison. Now, several decades later,
the Minnesota History Theatre, the Playwrights’ Center, and the
University Theatre Department have come together to bring their amazing
story to the stage.
7:30 p.m., History Theater,
Rarig Center, 330 21st Ave. S., Minneapolis;
$25.
BOOKS & AUTHORS
Charles Baxter
whom we’re happy to once again claim as a local (he recently returned
from a long exile in Ann Arbor) has been at it for twenty-five years
now, and his body of work—which includes novels, short stories, poetry,
and essays—has gained both a national reputation and a cult following.
His novel The Feast of Love
was a National Book Award nominee and was recently made into a film.
Baxter’s teaching at the University of Minnesota these days, but he
keeps turning out books (he’s purportedly an insomniac), and his
latest, The Soul Thief, involves a graduate student wrestling with the realization that he may not be who he thinks he is. Or something like that. —Brad Zellar
7-8 p.m., MinneapolisCentral Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis; 612-630-6174.
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