By Pierre Corneille
As Adapted by Tony Kushner
Dr. Thompson E. Potter Fine Arts Theatre – Missouri Western State University – St. Joseph, MO – April 7-11, 2010
Director: Kevin Brown
Costume Design: Andrea Southard
Lighting Design: Jeff Meyer
Set Design: William G. Fields
Video and Sound Design: Josh Engemann
Director’s Notes:
The Illusion is a play about two things that are evanescent: love and theatre. On the one hand, it is about the illusion of theatre itself. Theatre is a world in which images are made from scratch. Plywood and paint are propped up to become earth and sky. Light and smoke obscure trap doors and quaint devices in which magicians conjure tricks in a multi-layered disappearing act. On the other hand, this is a play about love. Like theatre, love is a thing that is intangible. It is here one day and gone the next. It is all that we live for, yet it cannot be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched. Yet, ultimately, love is the only thing in this world that is real at all. As Alcandre the magician tells us: “What in this world is not evanescent? What in this world is real and not seeming? Love, which seems the realest thing, is really nothing at all… The art of illusion is the art of love, and the art of love is the blood-red heart of the world, at times I think there’s nothing else.”