Copious Notes

Pete Sears and Vanessa Becker as Mr. and Mrs. Martin in Balagula Theatre's "The Bald Soprano." Photo by Eugene Williams.

Warhorses need not apply on the Lexington Theatre scene this weekend. Bluegrass Community and Technical College and Balagula Theatre both offer up offbeat offerings this weekend, one homegrown and one from across the pond.

BCTC’s Theatre Program opens Jane Martin’s Middle Aged White Guys Thursday night, so we’ll start with them. The play, which premiered at the 1994 Humana Festival of New American Plays, centers on three brothers who gather every decade at a garbage dump to toast the memory of the woman one of them married and the other two had flings with. They eventually drove her to drive herself off a cliff, but with a little help from the Almighty, she’ll have her revenge. The play runs through Saturday at the Talon Winery and Vineyards.

Balagula Theatre opens French-Romanian author Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano Sunday at Natasha’s Bistro and Bar for a two-week run. The play presents two couples, the Smiths and the Martins having a visit that slips down a slope from normalcy to complete non-sequiturs. Directed by Natasha Williams, it is the second in Balagula’s season of existentialist, absurdiust plays. Natasha’s is arranging a special menu to compliment the play.

Ryan Case and Natasha Williams, directors of Balagula Theatre. Photo by Mark Cornelison | Herald-Leader.

For the first time, Balagula Theatre at Natasha’s Bistro & Bar is announcing a full season of plays. The 2009-10 season is billed as a look at “the existential” and “the absurd.”

Sept. 13-16, 20-23: B for Beckett (A Night of Samuel Beckett’s Plays) – A trio by the Irish author: Play, Not I and Endgame.

Nov. 8-11, 15-18: Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco – The first play written by the French-Romanian master.

Feb. 21-24, 28-Mar 3: No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre – A play with three main characters, set in hell, that produced the quote, “hell is other people.”

May 16 - 19, 23- 26: Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad by Arthur Kopit – The play that made Kopit a star in playwriting circles is about a woman who travels with her neurotic son, pet piranha and the stuffed corpse of her husband.

Season tickets will be $50 and are available by calling (859) 259-0183 between noon and 6 p.m. Mon.-Sat. There will be a pay-what-you can performance of each show, and dates for those performances will be announced near the time of each production.