WOYZECK Trailer (2012)

Watch this video teaser from the Shotgun Players production

“In The Shotgun Players' top-notch production of Woyzeck, director Mark Jackson injects a hipster grunge aesthetic into this desolate, hope-dashing farce… In Jackson's smart and dynamic production, looking into the abyss was never so enjoyable.”

EAST BAY EXPRESS

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“Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan's sensuous melodies and sardonic lyrics envelop the fractured shards of Georg Büchner's unfinished script to create riveting theater in the Woyzeck that opened Friday at Shotgun Players' Ashby Stage. Director Mark Jackson blends their talents with those of his company to deliver one of the most exciting productions of the year. This is a Woyzeck that's as emotionally compelling as it is intellectually stimulating and mordantly comic, which is a major achievement. …The show's impact also derives from how well the director builds on the genius of his predecessors. …As seductive as it is potently immediate.”

Named one of the Top Ten Bay Area theater productions of 2012

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Jackson has always had a way with the avant-garde impulse. He brings electrifying intensity to this groundbreaking drama, a play seminal enough to shape everyone from Brecht to Beckett… Jackson also gilds the piece with wit, which helps make the play's grim themes tartly comic as well as disturbing… From start to finish, Jackson nails the jarring tone of the piece, its unsettling theatricality punctuated by the lure of circus music… We may never know how Büchner intended to fit all the shards of this haunting narrative together. But it's hard to imagine a Woyzeck more darkly hypnotic than this one.”

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

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“Director Mark Jackson has done a bang up job.”

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“Jackson takes a sure and playful approach to the staging, which pays off dramatically… Broodingly brilliant.”

SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN

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“A stunner… Beautifully performed… The first-rate cast and excellent direction of Mark Jackson serve the play well and tell the story with perfect clarity. …An emotional roller coaster that proves enormously satisfying… There is not a single moment, musical or dramatic, that fails to hit its mark.”

EXAMINER.COM

Written by Büchner in 1836 and famously left unfinished by his death, Woyzeck has become a modern classic since its 1913 stage debut in Munich. The various productions I saw over the years never made clear to me just why so many people feel a need to grapple with Büchner’s jarring shard. The play is almost invariably interpreted with a seemingly habitual, one-note, for me anti-dramatic bleakness, often with a testosterone-fueled “craziness” to liven things up. It wasn’t until I heard the play filtered through Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan’s junkyard musical sensibility that I found a vein into the beating heart of the piece. Waits and Brennan managed to bring to the play such clear-eyed compassion for anyone whose circumstances have found them blown overboard and questioning whether or not to wait on God, the Devil, or The Man for a hand up. It was an eye-opening experience to work on, and I was grateful for the privilege to share it with audiences.

Photos Jessica Palopoli and Nina Ball.