Directed by Darren Evans

Presented by Theatre on Fire and the Charlestown Working Theater

Theatre on Fire opens its fourth season at the Charlestown Working Theater with a pairing of two one-act plays by living legends Edward Albee and Harold Pinter. The American Dream by Albee lampoons the vapidity and acquisitiveness of American society, while One for the Road by Pinter, set in an unnamed prison, lays bare the stark reality of torture and abuse.

The American Dream received its world premiere at the York Playhouse, New York City, on January 24, 1961. An absurdist satire about an American family, Albee describes The American Dream as "an examination of the American Scene, an attack on the substitution of artificial for real values in our society, a condemnation of complacency, cruelty, emasculation, and vacuity; it is a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen."

One for the Road premiered at the Lyric Theatre Studio, Hammersmith, on March 13, 1984. A searing look at power and powerlessness, the play presents the interrogations of a tortured prisoner and his family. The interrogator, secure in the righteousness of his cause, systematically destroys their humanity, leading to a shocking conclusion. One for the Road is at once simple, elegant and brutal. Pinter said of the play: "This is not a metaphor about anything – it’s just a brutal series of facts."

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November 7-8, 13-15, and 20-22, 2008 Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm Thursdays: $15.00 Fridays and Saturdays: $20.00 Students and Seniors: $10.00 Buy tickets online!