Recent arts coverage:
- Evolutionary biology. Aesthetic determinism. Live action role playing. The Rude Mechs are making a new play again
- Suburban battlefield: Women fight invisible foe in Amie Siegel’s ‘Black Moon’
- In eerie paintings by Ana Fernandez, a house isn’t just a house
More arts coverage | Follow this blog on Twitter @artsinaustin | Read recent arts reviews
Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > November > 05
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Theater for germaphobes
Lately, with fears of the H1N1 flu rocking the public psyche, bottles of antibacterial hand sanitizer grace office desks and retail countertops. In some world cities, medical face masks have become the new accessory. And cultures with affectionate cheek-kissing greetings are now finding their traditions the subject of public health concerns.
A few years ago, when playwright Zayd Dohrn began writing ‘Sick,’ a quirky comedy about a Manhattan family and the absurd extremes they go through to protect themselves from pollution, he had plenty of material at hand. He was living in Beijing during the height of the SARS epidemic. Dohrn relocated to China from post-Sept. 11 New York, where health-threatening environmental fallout from the terrorists attacks was dreaded.
Now here in Austin — as H1N1 fears still makes headlines — Capital T Theatre is opening a new production of ‘Sick.’
In Dohrn’s offbeat play, a family of germaphobes believes they have allergies to everything from junk food to cleaning supplies to the Manhattan air. When their vacuum-sealed home is invaded by a visitor, chaos crescendos.
‘Sick’
8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays through Dec. 5
Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St.
$15-$25
www.capitalT.org
