Genesius Guild's “The Wasps" at Lincoln Park -- July 22 through 30.
Saturday, July 22, through Sunday, July 30
Lincoln Park, 1120 40th Street, Rock Island IL
Following last summer's zany delights of their Aristophanes adaptation The Frogs, area-comedy favorites T Green and Calvin Vo – founders of local theatre company Haus of Ruckus – will lend their formidable skills and wild invention to another Aristophanes work during the July 22 through 30 run of The Wasps, delivering another take on classical-Greek comedy sure to delight both fans of, and newcomers to, Genesius Guild's long history of season-ending slapsticks in Rock Island's Lincoln Park.
Although, due to Green's and Vo's participation, the specifics of the storyline are sure to change for the comedy's new interpretation, Aristophanes' original text for The Wasps, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, “satirizes the litigiousness of the Athenians, who are represented by the mean and waspish old man Philocleon (“Love-Cleon”), who has a passion for serving on juries. In the play, Philocleon’s son, Bdelycleon (“Loathe-Cleon”), arranges for his father to hold a “court” at home, but because the first “case” to be heard is absurd – that of the house dog accused of the theft of a cheese – Philocleon is cured of his passion for the law courts. He becomes a boastful and uproarious drunkard. The play’s main target is the politician Cleon’s exploitation of the Athenian system of large subsidized juries.” The Wasps is the fourth of 11 surviving plays by Aristophanes, and was known to be produced at the Lenaia festival in 422 B.C. during Athens' short-lived respite from the Peloponnesian War. As in his other early plays, Aristophanes' text satirizes demagogues and the war-mind, and also makes a point of ridiculing his era's courts of law.
Adored by area-comedy and -theatre lovers for their inventive, hilarious, original scripts, T Green's and Calvin Vo's Haus of Ruckus debuted locally at Davenport's Mockingbird on Main with 2021's “Jacques”alope – which, on August 26 and 27, will enjoy a one-weekend return engagement at Moline's Black Box Theatre in advance of the show's fall presentation at the Elgin Fringe Festival. Additional Haus of Ruckus productions have included “Pants” Labyrinth, Random Access Morons, Spooky Pete, and Are We There Yeti? (staged this past spring at St. Ambrose University), and although Green's and Vo's originally scheduled run of Funkyology was forced to cancel following the May collapse of the Davenport building the Mockingbird was housed in, a one-night-only, “acoustic” version of the comedy was presented to a sold-out house last month.
Featured in The Wasps' cast are Mel Maylum (St. Ambrose University's Tartuffe) as Phobokleon, David Weaver (Random Access Morons) as Philokleon, Jacob Lund (The Frogs) as Xanthias, and Olivia Akers (Desdemona in Genesius Guild's recent Othello) as Sosias, with the titular Wasps enacted by Nathan Elgatian, Katie Phillips, Joe Sager, Julia Sears, and Wiz Wooley.
The Wasps will be presented on the Don Wooten Stage in Rock Island's Lincoln Park July 22 through 30, with performances on Saturdays and Sundays at 7 p.m. Admission is free, though donations are encouraged and appreciated, and more information is available by visiting Genesius.org.
