Stage Notes: Monstrosity

13P is a group of 13 playwrights formed to ensure that their member’s plays get produced. Their guiding idea was “workshops and readings are fine, but let’s get the show up.” They thought two shows a year would be a reasonable approach, and they are about half way through their challenge. Monstrosity is their most ambitious yet. Written by Lucy Thurber and staged by the very talented (large-scale is her specialty) Lear de Bessonet, it is a dark, epic, heroic tale with singing teen-aged fascists, magic, war, commerce and love. I interviewed the playwright, who admits on a 13P video on YouTube that she is “a fantasy novel geek who likes knights, horses and swords," but “was always bummed out because none of the real heroes were girls.”

Well, Lucy, this sounds like a wild and exciting ride.
Yes, it’s a long, three-act, three-hour play, with a cast of 12 main characters, and an additional Teen Army of ten, and we hope to get an additional 30 persons marching and singing in the beginning of our show.

That’s huge. How did it come about?
I got obsessed with the idea of how close society –- at any given moment –- is to stepping over into fascism. I wanted to write a play about this and I wanted it to be a true epic, and I wanted the hero to be a girl.

How long have you been working on it?
It’s taken me eight years because it’s so long and big. And it’s my 13P play because it’s what they do. Nowhere else could I say, “We have a three-hour play, 50 people, and I really need to put it up to see if it works.”

I can tell by the excitement in your voice that you are having a good time with it.
It’s so large because I wanted to explore real theatricality, and to do a show with music, dance and movement. There are large scenes with marching and fighting and dead bodies all over the stage, and I wanted to see what would happen if I went from these large scenes and dropped to two and three person, more intimate scenes too.

Give me a little of the story.
The play starts in a fictional country that is being ruled by a fascistic youth movement. A hero arises and destroys the system. There are three acts because in each act I explore the different ways that we, us, societies react to a fascistic system. So, do we, one, destroy the system, two, create an alternative system, or three, straddle both realities and make it work.

So what exactly are you saying?
The play’s question is: can we make or create something new? And in it, there’s love, there’s war, and there are magical twins that ride a bicycle together.

It must be quite rewarding to watch your fantasy being fulfilled like this?
The fun of it is complete and utter joyous madness. It’s a glorious insanity.

So the title means?
It’s a play dealing with we, as human beings, creating something monstrous, but it also refers to the piece itself, because it’s so big.

The Connelly Theater, 220 E. 4th St., (866) 811-4111. July 9-19. Thurs.-Sun., 7 p.m., plus 1 p.m. matinees on Sats. $18.

Pictured above: Frank De Julio and Natalia Roldan; Carlo Alban and Samantha Soule. Photos by Jim Baldassare.