A coup of a premiere
Interruptions: Four Shabbily dressed actors imitate Miles Davis.
Visiting British playwright Stephen Jeffreys noticed an intriguing pattern—the large number of scenes from Shakespeare that could be described as “interrupted rituals” (the play-within-a-play in Hamlet, the banquet scene in Macbeth). That got Jeffreys started … and, over the past few months at UC Davis, he created a new play titled Interruptions, in which an imaginary country prepares for an election, undergoes a military coup, and deals with the consequences. The seven (interrupted) scenes involve everything from conversation to cooking to sex. A cast of about a dozen portrays a whopping 80 characters, and there’s original music by local composer Pablo Ortiz, making the show a particularly unusual and ambitious effort. This production at UC Davis is a premiere—Jeffreys’ other plays have been mounted in London, New York and Chicago. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in the Main Theater at UC Davis, $6-$11. Through May 6. (530) 752-1915.
