Theater: Summertime October 28, 2005

The Carleton Players will present a play by Charles Mee titled ?Summertime? on Friday, Oct. 21 and 28, and Saturday, Oct. 22 and 29, at 8 p.m. in the Carleton College Arena Theater. The event is free and open to the public, but reservations are recommended.

Directed by Associate Professor of Theater David Wiles, ?Summertime? is set at a Martha?s Vineyard summer home, where six men and six women of diverse ages, nationalities and sexual preferences come together in a humorous, tender, angry and absurd exploration of love in modern times. Reviewer Travis Holder says, ?They gather?to fuel passions and discard others, never content with doing anything even remotely related to what society considers normal behavior,? and adds, ?Mee admits he went out of his way to include ?material from history, philosophy, insanity, inattention, judicial theory, and the National Enquirer?.?

Mee is known for the bizarre nature of his plays. ?I like plays that are not too neat, too finished, too presentable,? he has remarked. ?My plays are broken, jagged, filled with sharp edges?That feels good to me. It feels like the world.?

His career as a playwright began in the 1960s after he graduated from Harvard University. After a brief interlude as an historian, Mee returned to the stage in the 1980s ?with a vengeance,? according to Holder. Unafraid to examine the nature of love in his work, he has done so often, such as in ?First Love,? ?Big Love,? ?Berlin Circle? and ?Wintertime.? He has also published a memoir, titled ?A Nearly Normal Life,? in which he writes about his struggle with polio.

The Carleton Players company is dedicated to producing and supporting drama at Carleton. Its primary purpose is assisting in the production of Players shows, but its functions extend to the support of other activities. These include sponsoring workshops about acting or technical theater, trips to off-campus theatrical productions and other related activities. The group produces three faculty-directed plays each year.

The Carleton College Arena Theater has limited disability accessibility. For more information or disability accommodations, or to reserve seating, call the Arena Theater office at (507) 646-4471.