INTERLUDES OF THE HEART
by Robert Blumenfeld
Reading at The Players Club
Directed by Leslie Kincaid Burby
Produced by Simple Production/Flo Ankah
In Interludes of the Heart the great writer Marcel Proust struggles to stave off death so he can complete his masterpiece, A la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time). His housekeeper Céleste Albaret ministers to his every need, and his brother Robert, a physician, urges him to go to a hospital, but he refuses. The play goes back and forth in time, as Proust relives some of his past; and an American graduate student interviews Céleste near the end of her own life. We meet the writer André Gide, a friend and rival of Proust; the diplomat Paul Morand and his wife, the Rumanian Princess Soutzo; Count Robert de Montesquiou, a poet and aesthete; and Alfred Agostinelli, with whom Proust was in love. Proust thought that a work of art should be understood without reference to the author’s life. In Proust’s case it has been easy to confuse author and the first-person Narrator, because the book contains autobiographical elements. However, the aspiring writer who is the Narrator of In Search of Lost Time is not Marcel Proust, any more than the character in my play (who says and does things Proust said and did), is Proust.
Cast:
Jeffrey Hardy* (Actor One)
Nat Cassidy* (Marcel Proust)
Flo Ankah* (Céleste Albaret)
Kieran Mulcare* (Actor Two)
Ilinca Tuvene (Actor Three)
Cameron Ring (Actor Four)
Scot Charles Anderson* (The Student)
Joe Burby* (Stage Directions)
Simple Production Statement: Reading new plays allows us to bring forth the voices of innovative theater-makers, providing opportunity for global artists, and fostering a sense of ensemble among potential collaborators and supporters. We explore material that highlights the challenges of immigration, and expands our understanding of the woman experience in our world.
* indicates that the player is an Actors Equity member.