A Christmas Karel Čapek

Media Release for immediate use: Monday 16 November 2015
From: The Bacchanals

The Bacchanals Present:

A Christmas Karel Čapek

Propeller Stage, BATS Theatre, 1 Kent Terrace
Friday 4 December – Saturday 19 December, 2015 at 7pm
Special $12 previews on Wednesday 2 & Thursday 3 December
Book online at www.bats.co.nz or phone (04) 802-4175
Tickets: $20/15

Music! Comedy! Satire! Christmas! Robots! Cookery!

“Statistics tell us that over 1,001,001 New Zealanders want our theatres to put on more plays about, by and for robots,” says director David Lawrence, “but will Creative NZ listen??” Of course not! all they care about are objectives and outcomes, like the robots they are destined to be replaced by. So be thankful that your old pals The Bacchanals Are Back!TM and ready to punch common sense in the goolies by giving you what you really want for Christmas: a Christmas show featuring Christmas and robots, performed by a combination of humans and robots! “The robots were meant to be a surprise,” laments Lawrence, “but they’re also the show’s main selling point so arghh!”

A Christmas Karel Čapek is the true story of how terrible consequences ensue when David and Brianne (played by the real life David and Brianne!) decide to overcome their shared misanthropy by building a robot to do all their human interaction and Christmas shopping for them. Will robots take over the world and kill all the humans? Will a human and a robot fall in unnatural love and civil union each other and a dog? Will Santa Claus make a terrifying appearance dressed as the Norse God Odin? You decide! (not really, there’s a script!) “But I like it best when The Bacchanals are being political and righteous,” you groan. “We hear you, but sometimes we just have to be silly and frivolous. Pleeeeeease let us just have this one show!” they groan back.

A Christmas Karel Čapek is by far the cleverest name a Wellington play has had in 2015 because only about three and a half people understand the joke: Karel Čapek was the Czech playwright who, in 1920, appropriated the Czech word ‘robot’ (meaning slave) to describe mechanical men built by humans to do their bidding in his famous play RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots). We’re explaining this in the media release because otherwise everyone will ask us “WHAT DOES THE TITLE MEAN??” and we could be talking about so many more interesting things than that, like Creationism or the Illuminati. A Christmas Karel Čapek is The Bacchanals’ first ever Christmas show! their third and final show for 2015! their 32nd show as a company!

The Bacchanals present A Christmas Karel Čapek BATS Theatre, 1 Kent Terrace Fri 4 – Sat 19 December 2015, 7pm $12 PREVIEWS on Wed 2 & Thurs 3 December http://bats.co.nz/shows/a-christmas-karel-capek/

The Bacchanals are a multi-award winning Wellington-based theatre company, founded in 2000 and dedicated to making theatre accessible to all be it economically, intellectually or geographically. They want theatre to remain a place for social, spiritual and psychological debate but more than anything they just want audiences to have a great time in their company. Their work has ranged from the Ancient Greeks to Shakespeare to new New Zealand works and the NZ premieres of current overseas plays. http://www.thebacchanals.net/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/TheBacchanalsNZ/
Twitter - @thebacchanals

© Scoop Media