Route 1 & 9 (The Last Act)

A rack of four monitors above the playing space show Wooster Group performers in the last act of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town shot in TV soap opera closeups. On the stage, simultaneously, the same performers perform a live rendition of a comic routine performed by vaudevillian Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham at the Howard Theatre in Washington, DC, in 1965.

“An extreme juxtaposition of ideas of color, culture, community and ways of looking at death.” – Stephen Holden, New York Times.

Info to be included in this area somehow…?? *** June 14, 1980: reading of Our Town by Thornton Wilder –– June 25 – July 1980: “Going My Way?,” a film shoot in New Jersey (footage incorporated into ROUTE 1 & 9) –– September 10 – February 1981: The Last Act rehearsals (later became ROUTE 1 & 9)  –– November 1980: Work on “Pigmeat” Markham routines begins (incorporated into ROUTE 1 & 9) and “The Lesson” – video shoot of Clifton Fadiman sequence (footage incorporated into ROUTE 1 & 9) –– February 19 – March 15: Public readings of Our Town –– June 1981: “Our Town,” a video shoot (sequences incorporated into ROUTE 1 & 9)***