Tales for Children Less Than Three Years Old
by Eugene Ionesco
Translated by Helen R. Lane
A puppet play from stories Ionesco told his daughter Marie-France when she was less than three years old
Directed by Edward Einhorn
Produced by David Einhorn
Stage Manager: Berit Johnson
Assistant Director: Glory Sims Bowen
Dramaturg: Karen Ott
Set Designer: Jennifer Collins
Assistant Set Designer: Judy L. Coburn
Costume Designer: Carla Gant
Lighting Designer: Kobun Kaluza
Puppets: Janine Schiller
Father: John Blaylock
Josette: Uma Incrocci
Narrator: Celia Montgomery
Performances at The Connelly Theater,
220 W. 4th St, between A
Ticket $15, $7 for children
Sepetmber 8-30, Saturdays and Sundays at Noon
Saturday, September 15 at 7:30 and Friday, September 21 at 6:30
Photo: John Blaylock and Uma Incrocci in a scene from Tales for Children Les Than Three Years Old
Untitled Theater Company #61 presents four stories by Eugene Ionesco, based on actual stories he told his daughter, Marie-France Ionesco. This production adapts those stories into a play featuring a lifesize puppet in the part of the daughter. The stories mix humor and childish wonder, while still investigating his deeper ideas about language and communication.
In each of the story, the daughter wakes her father and asks him to tell her a story. He does, and his stories range from a world in which everyone is named Jacqueline, to one is which telephones are called cheese, chairs are called windows and pillows are called bread. Ionesco’s familiar absurdist musings seem to have found their natural form as stories for a 33 month old girl. They exist in a world where they are no more strange and inexplicable then any other element of life. Much like the daughter, children will be entranced by the tales, while adults will be drawn by their wonderfully strange comedy and deeper philosophical implications.
"Staged with Pop Art panache by Edward Einhorn, Tales for Children...jauntily lays out Ionesco's thematic preoccupation with the way our minds are duped
from the outset by parental chicanery."
The Village Voice September 18, 2001
"A witty exaggeration of the ageless parental ritual of storytelling to children."
New York Theatre Wire
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