Molotov Theatre Group, America's second-oldest Grand Guignol theatre, has been invited to donate a sickness bag from its current production, "Blood, Sweat & Fears - Grand Guignol, DC's Sick Cabaret," to America's second largest private collection of air sickness bags. The bag will hold a featured position in www.airsicknessbags.com, according to museum curator Steven Silberberg.
Molotov provides its sickness bags to patrons of "Blood, Sweat & Fears - Grand Guignol, DC's Sick Cabaret," on stage until February 2, 2008 at 1409 Playbill Café (1409 14th Street NW, Washington, DC). The show has won critical acclaim in publications including The Washington City Paper, The Washington Blade and AllArtsReview4You.
Show times are Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8 PM, with a second late-night show on Saturday evenings at 11 PM. Tickets are available at the door for $15, with reduced price $10 tickets only for Wednesday evening performances.
Silberberg is the steward of the largest collection of air sickness bags in the contiguous United States, the second largest in the entire United States, and the tenth largest collection in the world.
"Air Sickness Bags are art," said Silberberg. "I specialize in collecting non-transportation Air Sickness Bags, and fully embrace Molotov Theatre Group's foray into producing such culturally important ephemera. Event inspired Air Sickness Bags are always the most interesting ones, but also the most difficult to find out about and obtain."
Molotov Theatre Group has donated three of its bags to Silberberg's collection. Two are new, and one was returned to the group at the conclusion of a performance. In Molotov's Artistic Director Lucas Maloney's opinion, the latter specimen may be the most interesting, because it carries a trace of a red stain at the top.
"We've identified the stain as lipstick," said Maloney, "which we can only assume to have been a close call."
"Blood, Sweat & Fears" is the latest production from Molotov Theatre Group, which won recognition for "Best Comedy" in the Capital Fringe Festival for its debut production, the original one-act play "For Boston." The Group's follow-up effort is a collection of three of the most famous Grand Guignol scripts, translated into English by Richard Hand and Michael Wilson, co-authors of the definitive textbook, "Grand Guignol: The French Theatre of Horror."
About Molotov Theatre Group
Founded in 2007, The Molotov Theatre Group is dedicated to preserving and exploring the aesthetic of the Grand Guignol, or French Theater of Horror. The Group will strive to accomplish this in two ways:
1) Through its ongoing project, "Grand Guignol DC," to produce English translations of original Grand Guignol scripts to preserve and draw attention to this important, and essentially forgotten genre; and
2) To apply ideal from the Grand Guignol to contemporary and classic works.
The Molotov Theater Group will pursue these goals following the Grand Guignol models of employing a resident company of artists and working towards building a true rotating repertoire of plays. To our knowledge, no other company in the world is working to maintain this genre in such a traditional way. For more information, visit http://www.molotovtheatre.com or http://www.myspace.com/molotovtheatre