6 Questions: Edward Bauer

Photo by Marina McClure

Edward Bauer is part of the cast of The Assembly's SEAGULLMACHINE and took time out from rehearsals to answer our 6 Questions about making theater, his dream role and working at La MaMa. SEAGULLMACHINE begins performance Saturday, April 14th and now runs through May 5th.

1. Who do you play in SEAGULLMACHINE?

Medvedenko, Chekhov's downtrodden and oft-forgotten peasant schoolmaster.

2. The play asks “What’s the good of making theater anyway?”  How would you answer that?

-I tend to think, at this point, that tightly knit and empathetic communities are the only things at all likely to save us from the currently overwhelming torrent of consumerist and technological alienation that we live and breathe in cities like New York and L.A. I've never been a part of any community as rich, creative, and caring as the ones that emerge out of theater's creation.

3. Do you have a preference: Anton Chekhov or Heiner Müller?

It hardly seems fair (to either playwright) to pick an arbitrary favorite. If you'll forgive the cliché, it's like comparing apples and orange paint peeling off the bathroom walls of a Crimean apartment complex -- peeling imperceptibly, at first, then sloughing off in great viscous gobs, sweating and slipping and cold. You are the paint. The General peers through his sighting-glasses, finger hovering over the switch. You are the paint, UND DIE FARBE WAR NIE WIRKLICH ORANGE, DU WIRST ZUSTIMMEN. Sorry, what was the question?

4. Do you have a “dream role” or a favorite role you've played?

I've always wanted to play Tupolski, in Martin McDonagh's THE PILLOWMAN.

5. What is the last good book/play/film/art exhibit you’ve seen/read?

I recently had the joy of seeing my fellow cast member Ben Beckley in the national tour of SMALL MOUTH SOUNDS, all the way across the country in L.A.! It was a funny, surprising, deeply humane piece of art, stuffed full of joy and pain and achingly loud silences.

6. What does working at La MaMa mean to you?

It's a real joy to be working in such a locus of theatrical history.

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La MaMa in association with 
The Assembly presents 

SEAGULLMACHINE 

Created by The Assembly 
Conceived by Nick Benacerraf 
Co-directed by Jess Chayes & Nick Benacerraf 
Text by Anton Chekhov, Heiner Müller, and The Assembly 

 April 14 - May 5, 2018 

The Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa 
66 East 4th Street 
(between Bowery and Second Avenue) 
New York, NY 10003 

Tickets: $30 Adults; $25 Students/Seniors; first ten tickets to every performance available for $10 each, advance sales only, as part of La MaMa 10 @ $10 ticketing initiative 

For Tickets and Info: CLICK HERE