Watching a play is the second-best way to achieve emotional catharsis, right behind writing a play about achieving emotional catharsis. Tear-stain a playbill with this GrouponLive deal: for $44, you get a four-play subscription to San Jose Stage Company (up to a $144.80 value, including all fees). The subscription includes one ticket for best-available seating upon redemption to each of the following plays:
Reckless, December 1EUR"16
Craig LucasEUR(TM) Reckless rings in the holiday season with the tale of a relentlessly chipper woman who discovers on Christmas Eve that her husband is plotting her murder. As she flees, her journey catapults her through the lives of a host of bizarre characters and situations, combining absurd comedy with the gift for closely observed emotion that Lucas displayed in his book for the musical The Light in the Piazza.
Red, February 6EUR"March 3
Winner of six Tony Awards, Red by John Logan burrows into the mind of the painter Mark Rothko as he creates several of his enormous, color-soaked murals during the 1960s. The story pits the tempestuous artistEUR"ambivalently engaged in a commission for the Four Seasons restaurantEUR"against a young assistant who takes jabs at the masterEUR(TM)s ego.
The Threepenny Opera, April 6EUR"28
It was Bertolt BrechtEUR(TM)s The Threepenny Opera that first introduced the world to Kurt WeillEUR(TM)s swinging hit EURoeMack the Knife,EUR later popularized by pop singer Bobby Darin. The musical follows the songEUR(TM)s title character, a charismatic criminal, as he struggles with his father-in-lawEUR"a man grown wealthy by protecting and exploiting the cityEUR(TM)s population of beggars. As it careens through a Victorian London infected by the jazzy sounds of the seamy cabarets common to Brecht and WeillEUR(TM)s own era, the plot veers knowingly from melodrama to satire to outrageously creaky deus ex machina.
Summer musical (yet to be announced), May 29EUR"June 30
The theater is currently deciding on the next piece to follow in its tradition of popular musicals such as Cabaret, Avenue Q, and Altar Boyz.
