The Myopia is a comedy about Barclay, who is secretly writing a play about his father, Febus, who is struggling to finish a musical about Warren G. Harding that features his grandmother, Yetti, his mother, a Jewish Rapunzel named Koreen, Mrs. Harding, 16 U.S. Senators in the original smoke-filled room, and a cameo appearance from Carol Channing. This entire cavalcade is performed by one character, our Raconteur for the evening, who is performed by the inimitable David Greenspan from a single armchair on a bare stage.
2010 : Performed at The Atlantic Theater, NYC
The Myopia was performed in rep on weekends w/ PLAYS by Gertrude Stein
Company
Written and Performed by David Greenspan
Directed by Brian Mertes
Stage & Lights: Peter Ksander
Stage Manager: Casey Llewellyn
And this has been a Prologue and is a moment more until it ends, and then the next thing begins, and this next thing — this thing to begin – why, it is called The Myopia… and it is an epic burlesque of tragic proportion. Ding, ding, ding, ding. And the curtain is rising on its first act…
Press
“The Myopia is nothing short of revolutionary. No one is like Greenspan … a one-man cabinet of wonders. Anyone can stage pictures but few can bedazzle the mind’s eye.” – Timeout NY
“An actor of uncommon gifts… He moves like a graceful animal on the prowl… he speaks dialogue as if it’s modernist music … he both stops the show and sends it soaring onto another plane entirely.” –The New York Times
“… a piece of sheer astonishment, merging theatrical flamboyance and intellectual audacity, that have become synonymous with the name of David Greenspan. …a tragedy that could send you home thinking you’ve been on an amusement-park ride.” -Village Voice
Video
PLAYS by Gertrude Stein
“Generally speaking all the early recollections, all a child’s feeling of the theatre is two things. One which is in a way like a circus that is the general movement and light and air which any theatre has, and a great deal of glitter in the light and a great deal of height in the air; and then there are moments, a very very few moments, but still moments. One must be pretty far advanced in adolescence before one realizes a whole play.
Up to the time of adolescence when one does really live in a whole play up to that time, the theatre consists of bright filled space and usually not more than one moment in a play.” From Gertrude Stein’s Lecture: PLAYS
