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Mad Gravity

Mad Gravity is a comedy about Archie and Eudora, two Dada performance artists who have built a theatre in their living room.

  • Full Length Play
  • Farce
  • 95 minutes

  • Time Period: Contemporary
  • Target Audience: Adult, Senior
  • Set Requirements: Bare Stage/Simple Set
  • Cautions: Strong Language

  • Performance Group:
  • Community Theatre, College Theatre / Student, Senior Theatre

  • Accolades:
  • Winner! The Reva Shiner Comedy Award @ Bloomington Playwrights Project
Mad Gravity is a comedy about Archie and Eudora, two Dada performance artists who have built a theatre in their living room. Every night before a live audience they act out their lives. You've heard of reality television; think of it as reality theatre.

They want to build a second experimental space in their kitchen but they just cannot take any more kitchen sink realism. Artaud would be proud of them. Tonight's Theatre of Cruelty performance concerns their teenage daughter who wants to marry the son of Joe and Mary. All the parties involved have been invited to the house/theatre. But when the kids forget to tell Joe and Mary about the live audience all hell breaks lose.

Things go from bad to worse when they discover that a comet has been spotted in the night sky. There is a 50/50 chance it will hit the earth. Everyone, including the audience, may have only an hour to live. This forces the parents to stop arguing about insignificant things like marriage and start arguing about great philosophical questions of life: Is the comet a sign from God or is it just gravity? And what the hell is performance art?

The one page second act (that's right the second act is one page long) does something no play has ever attempted in the history of theatre - it lets the audience in on the meaning of life.

REVIEWS:

"Downs is playing clever, agile games with reality, perception and identity here. This play is a highly elastic experience in irony and self-awareness of form that put me in mind of The Stunt Man, and perhaps I'm a sucker for this stuff, but Mad Gravity is inspired satire and one of the best times you're likely to have in a theatre this month."

 Arts Louisville

"Funny, fast and thought-provoking."

 Insider Louisville

"For a wildly different evening of fun theater."

 Bloomington Herald Times

"Exquisitely smart, with brilliant comic riffs on Dadaism, religion, domestic relations and personal morality (after all, if the world is actually going to end in an hour, figuring out whether looting, praying or having sex is the best way to validate the significance of life becomes a question of some urgency)."

 Louisville Weekly

  • Casting: 2M, 3F

Name Price
Mad Gravity Script Order Now

Mad Gravity is a comedy about Archie and Eudora, two Dada performance artists who have built a theatre in their living room. Every night before a live audience they act out their lives. You've heard of reality television; think of it as reality theatre. They want to build a second experimental space in their kitchen but they just cannot take any more kitchen sink realism. Artaud would be proud of them. Tonight's Theatre of Cruelty performance concerns their teenage daughter who wants to marry the son of Joe and Mary. All the parties involved have been invited to the house/theatre. But when the kids forget to tell Joe and Mary about the live audience all hell breaks lose. Things go from bad to worse when they discover that a comet has been spotted in the night sky. There is a 50/50 chance it will hit the earth. Everyone, including the audience, may have only an hour to live. This forces the parents to stop arguing about insignificant things like marriage and start arguing about great philosophical questions of life: Is the comet a sign from God or is it just gravity? And what the hell is performance art? The one page second act (that's right the second act is one page long) does something no play has ever attempted in the history of theatre - it lets the audience in on the meaning of life.

$24.95