A previously anonymous man escapes from prison, kills his parents and embarks on a murderous quest through a labyrinthine metropolis. Who is Roberto Zucco, and why does he kill? While a dysfunctional community tries to ward off the trail of darkness as some demonic external force, the murderer himself, Roberto Zucco, appears to be the least callous, and most honest of them all. Based on the true story of a young Italian man, Roberto Succo, who went on a crime spree while on limited release from a psychiatric hospital.
The playwright, Bernard-Marie Koltes was born in 1948 in eastern France and died of AIDS at the age of 41. Bernard-Marie Koltes, through almost unknown in the U.S., outside of New York, is one of the most frequently produced playwrights in Europe, and considered the heir of Genet and Beckett. The London Times wrote that he was, “a creator of mythology of the underworld, a champion of the underdog and the lone wolf, and a pioneer of a wholly new style of dramatic writing.”
Open Fist Theater Company, 1625 N. La Brea Ave., Hlywd.; Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; thru July 17. (323) 882-6912
- LA TIMES: “Director Russell Milton and his hardworking 21-member cast make the theme of society’s preoccupation with violence abundantly clear in a stylish staging for Open Fist Theatre Company . . .”
- LA WEEKLY RECOMMENDED! “bring(s) abundant humor to an episodic series of grimly suspenseful scenes in which the audience is left guessing who will be Zucco’s next victim. . . . Standouts include Kieffer’s hilarious prison guard/police officer, Rebecca Metz’s acerbic madam and Michelle Haner’s wickedly cynical rich lady whom Zucco abducts in the show’s dramatic zenith.”
DAN REED LIGHTING DESIGN 