Major Barbara

What happens when George Bernard Shaw, theater’s old-time renegade, meets Japanese Kabuki? Will it be a fight to the death or can these these two disparate theatrical forms peacefully and productively co-exist? In this work, The Theatre of a Two-headed Calf melds together the dense political rhetoric of Shaw with the physical and vocal stylizations of Japanese Kabuki and discovers the many ways that, though quite different, these two theater styles, preoccupied as they are with the physicalization of class and gender difference actually inform one another. The infusion of Kabuki’s Aesthetics of Cruelty adds a particular poignance to Shaw’s Major Barbara, in which a Major in the Salvation Army argues for redemption, while her father, a rich arms manufacturer, argues for the necessity of man’s murderous, freedom-giving abilities.

Brooke O’Harra directs, with music composed by Brendan Connelly. Music is performed live by The Scenery Ensemble, which includes Sam Hilmer (saxophone), Matt Hough (electric guitar) and Ian Antonio (drums).