By Rajiv Joseph
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51st Season • 490th Production JULIANNE ARGYROS STAGE / APRIL 12 - MAY 3, 2015 Marc Masterson Paula Tomei ARTISTIC DIRECTOR MANAGING DIRECTOR David Emmes & Martin Benson FOUNDING ARTISTIC DIRECTORS presents the world premiere of Mr. Wolf by Rajiv Joseph Nephelie Andonyadis Leah Piehl Lap Chi Chu Cricket S. Myers SCENIC DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN LIGHTING DESIGN SOUND DESIGN John Glore Joshua Marchesi Sue Karutz DRAMATURG PRODUCTION MANAGER STAGE MANAGER Directed by David Emmes The Playwrights Circle Honorary Producer MR. WOLF was commissioned by South Coast Repertory with a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation and workshopped in the 2014 Pacific Playwrights Festival. Mr. Wolf • South CoaSt RepeRtoRy • P1 CAST OF CHARACTERS (In order of appearance) Theresa ....................................................................................... Emily James Mr. Wolf .................................................................................. John de Lancie Julie ..................................................................................... Kwana Martinez Michael ......................................................................................... Jon Tenney Hana .................................................................................. Tessa Auberjonois LENGTH Approximately two hours and 15 minutes, including one intermission. PRODUCTION STAFF Casting ..................................................................................... Joanne DeNaut, CSA Assistant Director ............................................................................... Leah Cassella Production Assistant ......................................................................... Bradley Zipser Costume Design Assistant ................................................... Lydia Graboski Bauer Stage Management Intern ................................................................ Amanda Short Light Board Operator .................................................................. Sumner Ellsworth Sound Board Operator ........................................................................... Chad Dove Automation Operator ........................................................................ Vincent Quan Wardrobe Supervisor/Dresser ........................................................... Jessica Larsen The Actors and Stage Managers employed in this production are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. Please refrain from unwrapping candy or making other noises that may disturb surrounding patrons. Videotaping and/or recording of this performance by any means whatsoever are strictly prohibited. Electronic devices should be turned off or set to non-audible mode during the performance. Smoking is not permitted anywhere in the theatre.w P2 • South CoaSt RepeRtoRy • Mr. Wolf Who’s There? he first line in Rajiv Joseph’s Mr. are not really aimed at the ripped-from- Wolf is a question. So is the penul- the-headlines circumstance that propels timate line in the play. In between its plot—although Joseph does mine rich those two questions are more than dramatic material from the complicated 400 others. In one monologue psychologies of people whose lives have Talone, spoken by the play’s central char- been turned upside-down (twice) by that acter, 20 of the first 24 sentences are ques- circumstance. Instead, the play asks big- tions. The very word “question” is said 18 ger questions—the kind any of us might times in Mr. Wolf. (For the sake of com- ask in a moment of existential doubt: parison, another famously interrogatory “Who am I?” “What do I do now?” “Where play, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, also begins is God in all this?” Playwright Rajiv Joseph. with a question, after which 440 more are Questions of that kind tend not to asked; and the word “question” is spoken be answerable with anything approach- 17 times, much more frequently than in ing certainty; and it’s the unanswerable any other Shakespeare play—prompting question—or perhaps the unprovable The wise man doesn’t give the right one scholar to write an entire book called answer—that sometimes gives rise to answers, he poses the right questions. The Question of Hamlet.) faith. Whatever else it may be about, Mr. ~ Claude Levi-Strauss People have asked questions since Wolf looks at a group of characters who the dawn of humanity; in fact one could are situated in various places on a spec- say the species defines itself by its inquisi- trum that traverses from certainty to faith There are four questions of value in tive nature. It’s worth noting that the to doubt to hopeless disbelief, and every life... What is sacred? Of what is the first question recorded in the Bible is not character’s position on that spectrum spirit made? What is worth living for posed by Adam or Eve (or their all-know- changes at least once over the course of and what is worth dying for? The an- ing God), but by the serpent, who pro- the play. swer to each is the same. Only love. vokes Eve by asking, “Hath God said, Ye Hamlet, while discussing the play- shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” within-a-play he will use to probe the ~ Lord Byron In a sense that first question has given conscience of his father’s murderer, re- birth to all others, because it prompts fers to the “question of the play.” The Religion survives because it answers Eve and then Adam to sample the fruit of phrase is Shakespeare’s tacit acknowl- three questions that every reflective the tree of knowledge … which leads not edgement that one of drama’s primary person must ask. Who am I? Why am I to knowledge, but to the awareness of functions—perhaps its most basic—is to here? How then shall I live? its absence, and hence to a need for the pose questions; questions that are to be words “why,” “what,” “how,” “who” and considered, consciously or subliminally, ~ Jonathan Sacks their relatives. by both characters and audience. Questions become necessary when The inquisitive nature of Mr. Wolf Theater is there to search for ques- knowledge is lacking: the act of question- and its characters comes from Rajiv tions. It doesn’t give you instructions. ing indicates a desire to discover mean- Joseph’s own propensity to ask ques- ~ Vaclav Havel ing and truth. Questions can also be stra- tions—the reason he has chosen to write tegic. In the first scene of Mr. Wolf, the plays in the first place. “Right now I’m just Quite early on, and certainly since I title character teaches his young female very glad and grateful that I found my way student that the key to surviving in the to playwriting,” says Joseph, “and that started writing, I found that philo- world is inquiry: “Ask as many questions from what I can tell from audiences, I’m sophical questions occupied me more as you can. People are made uncomfort- not the only one interested in the ques- than any other kind. I hadn’t really able by questions, and then they will be tions in these plays.” thought of them as being philosophi- off-balance.” The student will go on to Mr. Wolf’s last question, in the clos- cal questions, but one rapidly comes use inquiry in just that way —as a tactic— ing moment of the play, finally prompts to an understanding that philosophy’s but mostly, she asks questions because an answer … but the answer that ends she truly needs answers after her world the play can only elicit new questions, only really about two questions: ‘What has suddenly been split open by doubt which we in the audience are asked to is true?’ and ‘What is good?’ and uncertainty. ponder as we return to our own uncer- ~ Tom Stoppard The central questions in Mr. Wolf tain lives. Mr. Wolf • South CoaSt RepeRtoRy • P3 Artist Biographies TESSA AUBERJONOIS of the L.A. Philharmonic’s “Symphonies for Youth,” Hana as well as writer/director/host of “First Nights,” an adult concert series at Disney Hall. He has directed previously appeared at SCR in operas including Tosca, Cold Sassy Tree, Madame Absurd Person Singular, Becky Butterfly, The Abduction from the Seraglio and La Shaw, Crimes of the Heart, A Cenerentola. He has performed and directed plays Wrinkle in Time, Lobby Hero, for L.A. Theater Works and was co-owner, with the Hold Please, Everett Beekin and late Leonard Nimoy, of Alien Voices, a production numerous Pacific Playwrights company devoted to the dramatization of classic Festival and NewSCRipts readings. Her favorite science fiction. He has just finished producing a roles include Lady Macbeth (The Antaeus Compa- documentary on the wonderful phenomenon of ny); Lydia Languish in The Rivals, title roles in Lady Bronies. De Lancie recently completed a lifelong Windermere’s Fan and The Country Wife (The dream of sailing his boat to the South Seas and Shakespeare Theatre Company); Myra in Hay Fever back. (Westport Country Playhouse); Viola in Twelfth Night (Utah Shakespearean Festival); Leah in Bones EMILY JAMES (Kirk Douglas Theatre); Allison in Trainspotting Theresa (off-Broadway); and numerous other off-Broadway and regional appearances. She can be seen and is thrilled to be making her first heard frequently on television, film, radio, audio- appearance at South Coast Rep- books, music videos, web series and video games. ertory. Raised in Louisville, Ky., Auberjonois is a graduate of the London Academy she attended Youth Performing of Music and Dramatic Arts and the Yale School of Arts School where she began Drama. @TAuberjonois her journey in theatre. Upon graduation, she moved to California to continue JOHN DE LANCIE her training.