The Select (The Sun Also Rises)

The third installment in Elevator Repair Service's reconsideration of American modernist classics, The Select (The Sun Also Rises) takes Hemingway's war-rattled, drink-addled novel straight on and sparely, the way Papa would have wanted. The play lacks some of the innovation of ERS's earlier productions, but perhaps that's fitting, as the source material is openly hostile to ambition, preferring to rub readers' noses in the blasted lives and cynical scars of its characters.

Using a single bar set for every scene --- tables double as bulls in Pamplona --- ERS's version emphasizes the nearly constant inebriation of the characters as they try to chug their way out of their ennui. By the third dance sequence and billionth open bottle, some of that boredom creeps its way into the audience. Still, Ben Williams, who plays Jake's friend Bill by way of James Joyce's Buck Mulligan, stole our hearts as well as our ears (he doubles as the sound designer), and we're crossing our fingers that ERS tackles wordy, moody Woolf next.    

Photo: thanks

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