Originally Produced in 1989, Tales of the Lost Formicans Presents a Portrait of an American

Blurbs:

Blurb #1: Tales of the Lost Formicans, by Constance Congdon is an exploration of contemporary suburban America as seen through the eyes of time-traveling space aliens from the future. Hysterically funny, deeply moving, and insightfully revealing, this play walks a fine, fun line between the joys and challenges of our changing world. It runs Thursday through Saturday, April 7,8, 9 and 14, 15, and 16,

Blurb #2: Originally produced in 1989, Tales of the Lost Formicans presents a portrait of an American family as observed by aliens. Cathy, a working mother recently abandoned by her husband, moves back to her childhood home to pull her life together, expecting stability. But even in the Colorado suburb, everything is unravelling: her best friend is even more confused, her neighbors are seeing saucers overhead, and her father is losing his grip on reality. Congdon imaginatively tells this funny and moving story through the eyes of aliens at work observing and cataloging human behavior -- and in a style that is breakneck and surreal. Tony Kushner in his glowing introduction to this play calls Tales “entirely, unapologetically theatrical, by which I mean that they play the contradiction.”

Blurb #3: University Theater presents Constance Congdon’s comic drama, Tales of the Lost Formicans. In the play, a group of alien anthropologists tells the story of a woman in her mid-thirties and her family. The production asks whether anthropologists, even those from outer space, can truly remain outside of the cultures they observe.

Blurb #4: Long ago and far, far away in the future, a group of alien archaeologists speculate about artifacts collected on their explorations from a planet called Earth. Constance Congdon looks with light–hearted affection at family dysfunction, child rearing, paternal care and the battle of the sexes in her wonderful, wistful comedy.

Blurb #5 Narrated by a group of alien archaeologists, Tales of the Lost Formicans follows a suburban family sliding into dysfunction as the patriarch succumbs to Alzheimer’s disease, a daughter moves back home after leaving her husband, and her son runs away and ends up sleeping in shopping malls. Tripping over their own efforts, the family’s search for love parallels the quest of alien visitors to understand our absurd human world.

Blurb #6: A tragic comedy about the American Dream, Alzheimer’s disease, alien abduction and other subjects too horrible not to laugh at. This is a study of an American family sliding into dysfunction, narrated by a group of alien archaeologists who have recreated our civilization, mostly through all the plastic stuff we left behind.

Blurb #7: In “Tales of the Lost Formicans” we have another examination...this time by aliens from another time and place. They attempt to explain human behavior based upon the artifacts they discover. Along the way we learn a great deal about love, life, acceptance, and hope. “If not the best new play of recent years, surely this is the most imaginative. Constance Congdon’s brilliant off-Broadway script wryly deflects the story of a man with Alzheimer’s disease into a travel guide to Middle America conducted by aliens.” (William Henry III, Time )This play contains adult content and themes.

Blurb #8 What legacy will humans leave for future anthropologists? How is America to be viewed under the lens of cultural significance? Congdon writes a disturbing commentary on the loss of meaning in modern American suburban life and the chaos that has followed...all through the hilariously ironic observations of a contingent of extraterrestrial watchers!

Press Release Info:

THE FORMICANS ARE COMING! The WSU Theatre Program proudly presents Constance Congdon’s Tales of the Lost Formicans [Jones Theatre – April 7,8,9 & 14, 15, 16, 2005] Congdon dark comedy is an exploration of contemporary suburban America as seen through the eyes of time-traveling space aliens from the future. Hysterically funny, deeply moving, and insightfully revealing, this play walks a fine, fun line between the joys and challenges of our changing world. Part dream play, part sci-fi farce, Congdon’s imaginative, highly theatrical piece rests on the premise that space aliens are observing and interpreting suburban life through the lens of their own culture. Congdon focuses on the lives of a suburban family slowly coming apart at the seams as Jim (Dave Herigstad), the family’s patriarch, is slowly succumbing to the ravages of Alzheimer’s. His daughter, Cathy (Kelsey Gunn), has moved back home after the dissolution of her marriage, uprooting her temperamental teenage son Eric (Patrick Ryan) in the process. Jim’s wife Evelyn (Amee Walden) is left to care for her husband, all the while trying to connect with her daughter and grandson. All of these events are related by the narrators of the story, a group of alien anthropologists, who examine human society from their own perspective. Through their insights and faulty assumptions the aliens offer a fresh and very funny take on human nature.

Tales of the Lost Formicans is the work of Constance Congdon, a 1991-92 Guggenheim Fellow. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Playwriting Fellowship and a Rockefeller Playwriting Award, and she was the first recipient of the Arnold Weissberger Playwriting Award. Tales of the Lost Formicans won the Newsday/Oppenheimer Award for the best new play produced in New York City in 1990. Providing a whimsical look at the idiosyncrasies of human interaction, Tales of the Lost Formicans, offers a unique multi-generational perspective on the reality of the North American family. Incorporating movement and multimedia, this production promises to be a hilarious and thought-provokingfinish to the 2005 theatre season.