PARADISE THEATRE presents OPENING NIGHT (1977)
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THE PARADISE PRESENTS: "All the World's a Stage!" Eight films about the players...
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"All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts..." -William Shakespeare
This June at the Paradise Theatre, we are celebrating the theatre itself! Join us as we journey through centuries' worth of theatrical traditions from across the globe with eight unique films that observe the hallowed art of performance. And what better way to kick things off than with John Cassavetes' masterful portrait of an actress in shambles. Starring his wife and frequent collaborator in a tour de force performance- it's 1977's OPENING NIGHT!
In a role equally as fragile and mercurial as A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE’s “Mabel”, Gena Rowlands is OPENING NIGHT’s “Myrtle”: a successful actress going kind of crazy in a play about aging crazily.
John Cassavetes’ hymn to that berserk business of performing, OPENING NIGHT is enhanced by its intense “old Hollywood” pedigree as Ben Gazzara, John Blondell, Paul Stewart and Cassavetes himself are the backing band for Rowlands’ knife-edged soloing.
From the first scene, the narrative is peppered with turn-on-a-dime ambiguity. Whole swathes of action take place “onstage” in front of a real-life audience watching the in-character cast — with a permeable membrane between stage and “reality” so tangible it hurts.
(Courtesy of Shout! Factory and the American Genre Film Archive)
Thursday June 2, 8:00 PM/7:30 PM Doors
