Quartet & The Task

David Austin-Gröen, Kris Wasley, and Gabriel Diamond in
Hamletmachine by Heiner Müller

by Heiner Müller
Directed by Rob Melrose
December 5

Quartet is Müller’s riff on Les Liaisons Dangereuses set in the surprisingly combined spaces of a drawing room before the French Revolution and an air raid shelter after World War III. The Task follows the the course of a letter from its haphazard delivery during the French Revolution to its appearance in a modern office building where a nameless employee works for a boss named Number One. Two of Müller’s most interesting pieces in the same evening. Both plays were strongly influenced by Büchner’s Danton’s Death (see October 3).

The Cutting Ball Theater’s 2015-16 season is made possible in part by Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Fleishhacker Foundation, Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mental Insight Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, The RHE Charitable Foundation, The San Francisco Arts Commission, The San Francisco Foundation, and The Zellerbach Family Foundation, and Season Producers John and Paula Gambs, Ken Melrose, and Velia Melrose.