off-leash area: A Cupboard Full of Hate

CHOSEN AMONG THE BEST SETS OF 2005, City Pages A Cupboard Full of Hate (2005, 2006) A Cupboard Full of Hate is a wicked little tale about a wretched little man who hates the world so much that he locks himself up in a kitchen cupboard forever. At once broadly comic and obsessively dark, and performed entirely in Franglais, the show takes place in an interactive set on a claustrophobic stage where ethereal visions and nightmarish images weave the threads of a story involving a broken heart and a missing child. The stage is filled with enormous Joseph Cornell-like memory boxes out of which emerge the imaginary characters of a hateful mind.
	Based on the real life experience of Co-Artistic Director Paul Herwig, who lived in Paris from the summer of 1981 to the fall of 1984. "I and everyone I knew lived in little chambres de bonnes - maids rooms - the tiny, tiny servant's quarters at the top of every building, reached by traversing damp courtyards, clambering up narrow stairways, and slipping down dark and oily hallways to a row of other numberless doors behind which lived phantom lodgers one never saw, but occasionally heard. It was all a bit creepy and the landlords treated everyone with contempt, but for a bumpkin boy from Albert Lea, it was still Paris!"
	In this show Off-Leash Area brings the audience on a visual journey inspired in part from this experience, and aided by imagery inspired by a variety of visual artists, including Joseph Cornell’s sad memory boxes, Rene Magritte’s absurd word paintings, the dark and obsessive object animations of The Brothers Quay – with a little bit of Lewis Carroll, Dickens, and Wizard of Oz thrown in! At its core the show is about a man with a deeply unresolved grief, which has turned him into a hateful and preposterous fool.
	Conception and Direction – Paul Herwig Dramaturgy and Direction - Jennifer Ilse Sound, Lighting, Scenic Design and Construction – Paul Herwig Cast - 5 Duration - 65 minutes