The Mutilated
by Tennessee Williams
TRAGICOMEDY
Cult film star Mink Stole (Desperate Living, Serial Mom) was born to play Trinket, a high-strung high society fugitive. Penny Arcade (a teen-age superstar from Andy Warhol’s Factory) is her bosom buddy Celeste.
directed by Cosmin Chivu
BETH BARTLEY PRODUCTIONS / INTERART GROUP
New York, NY
Trinket (speaking to the statue in New Orleans’ Jackson Square Park where she’s locked in at night):
Good evening, General Jackson.
Tell me the secret of your strong, calm nature.
What? Oh. You're not made of flesh but of stone. I'm not made of stone but of flesh.”
About The Play
"Isn't it wonderful what a brassiere can do for a one-breasted woman?
—No. That's too obvious.
—Well, something more subtle, but something to give her a scare that'll keep her mouth shut.”
It’s Christmas Eve in New Orleans and a Texan Oil heiress, Trinket Dugan, is hiding a secret from the world in her SRO hotel.
Prostitute, drunk and derelict, Celeste Delacroix Griffin, Trinket’s frenemy for decades, waits on the flophouse couch hoping to bury the hatchet with Trinket after another of their legendary squabbles. This rarely seen farce – with Christmas carols! – written by Williams in 1966, is graced by veteran stars of the avant garde.
Penny Arcade, Mink Stole & John Waters On The Mutilated
About The Creative Team
About Mink Stole
As an original Dreamlander working with John Waters, Mink Stole has portrayed some of the more outrageous characters in independent film history, including Connie Marble in Pink Flamingos, Taffy Davenport in Female Trouble, Peggy Gravel in Desperate Living, and Dottie Hinkle in Serial Mom. Stole has often played “mother/aunt of the ‘gay’” as in such films as Jamie Babbitt’s But I’m A Cheerleader, Lee Friedlander’s Girl Play and Out at the Wedding, and the second, third, fourth and fifth installments of Ariztical’s Eating Out series. In 2009, Stole appeared as Esther in Steve Balderson’s filmed-in-Macon women-in-prison film Stuck!, and she is also carving out a place for herself in the horror genre, with major roles in Michael Frost’s unusual still-photographed 3 Faces of Evil, Robert A. Masciantonio’s Neighbor and Joshua Grannell’s recently released bloody homage to the single-screen theater All About Evil. She is currently featured in Jeffrey Schwarz’s lovely documentary I Am Divine as herself.
On stage, Stole has worked with director John Vaccaro, as well as the late, great Charles Ludlam. She performed the role of Autolycus in the L.A. Women’s Shakespeare Company’s production of The Winter’s Tale. In 2011, she appeared as Madge in the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival production of Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws, which also opened La Mama’s 50th Anniversary season in New York.
For the last few years, both in Los Angeles and Baltimore, Stole has been producing and performing her one-woman show Do Re MiNK with her Wonderful Band, which is also the title of her recently released CD. Visitminkstole.com to learn more.
About Penny Arcade
Born Susana Carmen Ventura to an immigrant Italian family in the small factory town of New Britain, CT, she became Penny Arcade at age 17 while on LSD in an effort to amuse her mentor and patron, openly gay photographer/artist Jaimie Andrews. It was Andrews, a member of The Playhouse of the Ridiculous, who introduced the young Arcade to legendary director John Vaccaro. Vaccaro, then directing Kenneth Bernard's potent play The Moke Eater, subsequently gave Penny her theatrical debut in the groundbreaking production. Soon after, Arcade became a teenage superstar for Andy Warhol's Factory with a featured role in the Morrissey/Warhol film Women In Revolt but quickly found the life of an upcoming pop tart too one dimensional and fled to Amsterdam.
In 1980, La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart and Vaccaro invited her to recreate her 1970 New York role in Ken Bernard’s play Nite Club. She returned to New York after nearly a decade of globe hopping and international intrigue to resume her apprenticeship with many of the greats of American experimental theatre including Jack Smith, Jackie Curtis and Charles Ludlam. In 1985, Arcade began creating her own improvisational and unscripted solo work. In 1989 she began to create group work, beginning with her commission from Engarde Arts for whom she created A Quiet Night for Sid and Nancy at the Chelsea Hotel.
1990-91 was a prolific period for Arcade during which she wrote four full length shows, including the core of her autobiographical trilogy: Based on A True Story, Invitation to The Beginning Of The End Of The World and La Miseria. It was also in 1990 that she created her most famous work, her sex and censorship show, BITCH!DYKE!FAGHAG!WHORE! A blend of political humanism, freedom of expression and erotic dancing, BITCH!DYKE!FAGHAG!WHORE! toured the world twice both as an international festival as well as a commercial hit in 20 cities around the world.
In the time since BITCH!DYKE!FAGHAG!WHORE!, Arcade premiered Bad Reputation, her all girl show (with a few gay men who wanted their own dance number!) at PS122 in 1999 and later in Manchester and Glasgow. New York Values, an autopsy on the death of Bohemia and the commodification of rebellion, premiered at PS 122 in 2002 as a group show and has been performed as a solo show in Los Angeles, Austin, Frankfurt, Heldelberg and the Royal Festival Hall in London. Visit pennyarcade.tv to learn more.
About Cosmin Chivu
Cosmin Chivu is a Romanian born theater artist, currently based in New York City, with an international career of award-winning productions. He has directed over 50 professional and university productions in America, Austria, England, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania and Thailand. His most recent projects includeBeautiful Province by Clarence Coo (LCT3), winner of the 2012 Yale New Drama Series, Something Cloudy Something Clear by Tennessee Williams at The Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival and a stage adaptation of Williams’s A Recluse and His Guest as part of the Drama League’s New Directors New Works. Chivu has directed over 30 plays in New York City, Massachusetts, California and New Jersey. He is a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, a member of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab, an alumnus of the Old Globe's Jack O’Brien fellowship and the founder of InterArt Theatre Group. Chivu is currently the Head of B.A. Acting/Directing Program, International Performance Ensemble at Pace University Performing Arts in New York City. He holds a Masters in Theatre Directing from the Actors Studio Drama School, New School University, NYC and a B.A. in Acting from the G. Enescu Art Academy, Romania. Visit cosminchivu.com to learn more.