Philadelphia Artists’ Collective presents August Strindberg’s The [Happy Hour] Dance of Death

Yet followers of the PAC, as it’s colloquially known, remember their productions as much for the inventive locales they use as for the texts by Shakespeare and Shaw. How many producers would have the ingenuity to stage J. M. Barrie’s romantic ghost story Mary Rose in a mansion on the grounds of the Woodlands Cemetery, or the Greek tragedy Iphigenia at Aulis aboard the USS Olympia at the Independence Seaport Museum? And remember their multi-year residency at Broad Street Ministry, in a wood-paneled, high-ceilinged room that resembled an Elizabethan theater?

Dance of Death will continue that tradition, taking up residence at the Franklin Inn Club. It’s a homecoming of sorts for the company, which presented Strindberg’s play Creditors in the same space in 2012.

Nasty man, wonderful plays

“Sometimes the play speaks to us and we find a space, and sometimes we have a relationship with the space, which inspires the play,” said Damon Bonetti, co-founder and producing artistic director of PAC, in a recent interview. “That’s been inherent in the mission since we’ve started, and it does inspire creativity. But we’ve always been very much round hole, round peg—we’ve never tried to force a show that didn’t belong into a space because we had it.”

In this latest project, the Franklin Inn Club transforms into the unhappy home of Edgar (Frank X) and Alice (Kittson O’Neill), a military captain and his long-suffering wife, who find themselves languishing in connubial misery on a remote island. Bonetti plays Kurt, Alice’s cousin, whose arrival sets in motion a funny and bitter denouement for the unhappy pair.

“Strindberg is a nasty, nasty, nasty man,” said Bonetti. “But he writes these really wonderful plays about human relationships and the way we treat each other. Creditors is very nasty, almost Succession-like. This has a nastiness to it as well, an unpleasantness to the people, but also a charm and devilish sense of play between Alice and the Captain. The human condition of marriage is a game to them. When a new person comes into their environment, it becomes about turning him to their side, turning him against the other.”

A collaborative production

PAC has christened this production The [Happy Hour] Dance of Death, referring to the playful approach they plan to take toward the script. Rather than a fully staged performance, Bonetti, O’Neill, and Frank X will read the play in the style of a salon. Prior to the reading, the audience is invited to mingle with the actors, as themselves, for a cocktail hour. Each ticket includes a complimentary beer, glass of wine, or soft drink.

Bonetti feels this method will foster maximum creativity. “We’re rehearsing all week and doing the salon Friday and Saturday—and the following week, we’re rehearsing again and doing two more salons,” he said. “When I talked to Kittson and Frank, both of them were super jazzed by the possibility. It’s not a model we often do in theater, and it’s a collaborative production. There isn’t a director. It’s the three of us collaborating on this whole thing.”

Bonetti also views this outing as a return to the company’s creative roots. “I always talk about our shows as being events,” he said. “You can always see a show—you can see the play somewhere else. But you’re never going to see it in this space again.”