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Weekend Excursion
Abrief jaunt from Yale's campus, a trip to New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre offers the opportunity for off-campus entertainment without the hassles of a train ride to New York. Until Sun., Feb. 11, Joe Sutton's political thriller The Third Army is playing at the theater. The title refers to the American Third Army, which withdrew from Czechoslovakia and yielded the liberation of Prague to the Soviets in 1945. It wasn't until more than 40 years later, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, that the West returned to the Czech Republic. Instead of soldiers, it was American investors who hoped to liberate the formerly communist society from economic ruin. Drawing on this history, The Third Army portrays a small town in the Czech Republic neighboring the Soviet-built but unfinished nuclear power plant Temelin. Americans flood the village, vying for the plant's profitable reconstruction contract, and mayor Pavel Marek becomes torn between his people and the lure of the economic prosperity promised by the sale of the contract.The plot seems simple enough, once the background is acquired. Sutton spent a year in Prague as a lecturer at Charles University in order to research the play, creating a thoroughly believable context. Sutton uses the specific details and history gleaned from his time in the Czech Republic to present a very real fictional world, but not so real as to deny the audience of The Third Army the pleasure of what Long Wharf Artistic Director Doug Hughes called his "masterful application of smarts, wit, and sheer storytelling skill." Long Wharf is presenting the premier of the Pulitzer-Prize nominated playwright's newest play.
The Third Army will run on the Mainstage of the Long Wharf Theatre until Sun., Feb. 11. Opening/press night will be on Wed., Jan. 17 at 8 p.m. Curtain times are Tuesdays at 7 p.m., Wednesdays through Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 4 and 8:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2 and 7 p.m. Ticket prices range from $15 to $45. Grab the opportunity to travel to the world of the post-Communist Czech Republic for less money (and effort) than it would take for a round-trip train ticket to New York, let alone theater tickets in the city. —Diana Aleman
For more information about the play, call the box office at (203) 787-4282. Groups of 10 or more can receive discounts by calling (203) 787-4284. Long Wharf Theatre is located just off I-95, exit 46, a quarter-mile from the intersection of I-95, I-91, and Route 34.
All materials © 2001 The Yale Herald, Inc., and its staff.
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