Finer Noble Gases
Description
In this freakishly funny and vividly imagined absurdist nightmare for our time, the inert occupants of an East Village apartment — members of a band once called “Lester’s Surprise,” now remembered simply as “Less” — are going numb. Pill-popping Chase and Staples, who look like they’ve been living on their sofa since the previous spring, sit mesmerized in front of the television until its untimely demise. Desperately in need of technological stimulus, they decide to call up their weird neighbor, luring him upstairs and under Chase’s narrative spell so that Staples can steal his Magnavox via the fire escape. The strange arrivals and events that follow move from the hilarious to the disturbingly existential, as Rapp’s electronic-age creatures long to feel something, to be part of something, or to be of use.
Production Info
Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Press Quotes
“A television blares in the background. A bloody child is carried into the room. And at least three kinds of bodily fluids are spilled. This can mean only one thing: Adam Rapp is back in town. Mr Rapp has always written with the energy and tastefulness of a punk rock band, so it should come as no surprise that his latest , FINER NOBLE GASES, follows the drugged-out members of an East Village rock group who waste away their days in front of the television, their eyes half-open, looking almost comatose. In 2000 Mr Rapp burst on the scene with NOCTURNE, a highly praised monologue about a piano prodigy living in the shadow of the death of his sister. Since then he has written a handful of grimly poetic plays including FASTER, TRUEBLINKA and STONE COLD DEAD SERIOUS — none of which you would probably want to take your grandmother to. The hallmarks of a play by Mr Rapp are slangy, potent dialogue; a dark, often baroque worldview; and a deep wallowing in the gratuitous … Mr Rapp is aiming for something much more grand and metaphysical than just another mundane tale of arrested development.” —Jason Zinoman, The New York Times
“Rapp has concocted a smelly brew here, but like all poisons it can be intoxicatingly fun to watch other people imbibe the stuff …” —Robert Hofler, Variety
Author
Adam RappAdam Rapp has been the recipient of the Herbert & Patricia Brodkin scholarship, two Lincoln Center Le Compte De Nuoy Awards, a fellowship to the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, the 1999 Princess Grace Award for Playwriting, a 2000 Roger L. Stevens Award from The Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, a 2000 suite residency with Mabou Mines, the 2001 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, Boston's Elliot Norton Award and was short-listed for the 2003 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. His plays include NOCTURNE (A.R.T., Off-Broadway at NYTW), GHOSTS IN THE COTTONWOODS (Victory Gardens; The Arcola, London), ANIMALS AND PLANTS (A.R.T.), BLACKBIRD (The Bush, London; Pittsburgh City Theatre; Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), STONE COLD DEAD SERIOUS (A.R.T., Off-Broadway with Edge Theater), FINER NOBLE GASES (26th Annual Humana Festival of New American Plays, Off-Broadway at Rattlestick), FASTER (Off-Broadway at Rattlestick), TRUEBLINKA (Off-Broadway at the Maverick Theater), DREAMS OF THE SALTHORSE (Encore, S.F.) and GOMPERS (Pittsburgh City Theatre; The Arcola, London). His first anthology of plays, Plays by Adam Rapp, is published by Broadway Play Publishing. His new collection of plays, Stone Cold Dead Serious: And Other Plays, is available in a trade edition by Faber & Faber. His first feature film was Winter Passing, starring Ed Harris, Will Ferrell, and Zooey Deschanel, which he wrote and directed for Stratus Films. He is the author of the young adult novels Missing the Piano (Viking/HarperCollins), The Buffalo Tree (Front Street/HarperCollins), The Copper Elephant (Front Street/HarperCollins), Little Chicago (Front Street), 33 Snowfish (Candlewick Press) and Under the Wolf, Under the Dog (Candlewick Press), for which he was recently short-listed for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Recent directing credits include his plays TRAIN STORY at The Cherry Lane and the Off-Broadway premiere of BLACKBIRD, which was nominated for two Drama Desk awards. Projects include the graphic novel Decelerate Blue for the new imprint First Second, the adult novel The Year of Endless Sorrows, published by Farrar Strauss & Giroux, and his play ESSENTIAL SELF-DEFENSE. A graduate of Clarke College in Dubuque, IA, Rapp also completed a two-year playwriting fellowship at Juilliard. He currently lives in New York City where he is the resident playwright for Edge Theater Company. He was born in Chicago and raised in Joliet.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 10/1/2005 |
| Pages | 80 |
| ISBN | 9780881452662 |
Special Notes
Originally produced at The Actors Theatre of Louisville
Subsequently produced by Rattlestick Theater, New York
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com