Quartet: A Play by Ronald Harwood
The late Ronald Harwood (né Horwitz) is probably best remembered as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Pianist, but he was first and foremost a playwright.
One of his most charming plays is Quartet, which opened in London in 1999, and thirteen years later was adapted by Harwood as a film directed by Dustin Hoffman, starring Maggie Smith and Tom Courtney.
Quartet is set in a retirement home for musicians. Three aging former opera stars, Reginald, Julie and Cecily, are gearing up for a gala concert performance in honor of Giuseppe Verdi’s birthday. Their reverie is disturbed by the sudden arrival of Jean, another former opera singer, who has never shaken off her well-earned reputation as a diva. Complicating matters further, Reginald turns out to be her long-suffering ex-husband.
In his review of the original London production, Paul Taylor, writing for The Independent, described the play as “a vehicle to make us laugh a little, sigh a little and cry a little” as the four characters “take us into the bittersweet world of facing up to age and mortality.”
Theater veteran Alan Jacobson (founder and former artistic director of the much-admired Plaza Theatre in Palm Beach County) has assembled a superb cast of actors, including himself, his actress/singer wife Melissa Boher Jacobson, Desiree Duncan, and Matthew Rappaport. There will be two performances of Quartet, as a staged reading, at the Jewish Cultural & Community Center, Calle de las Moras 47 (near the corner of 5 de Mayo), on Monday, April 20, at 7pm and Tuesday, April 21, at 4pm.
All seats are 250 pesos, though there is a 20 percent discount for JC3 members. Tickets can be purchased here online, or for cash at the Jewish Center, during normal business hours.
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