SEPT 28 - OCT 23 2022

The search is finally over. The “Meaning of Life” has officially been found. You are cordially invited to a remote island where an elderly couple welcomes you to participate in a zany evening of laughter, tears, and philosophy…?! Eugène Ionesco wrote this Absurdist tour de force for an invisible cast of thousands one year before Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot took the world by storm with its evocative juxtaposition of vaudeville and existentialism. Full of witty wordplay and slapstick comedy, The Chairs will have you on the edge of your seat.

"Philadelphia favorites E. Ashley Izard and Frank X are starring in the Quintessence Theatre Groups's production of Eugene Ionesco's absurdist drama The Chairs at the Sedgwick Theater in Mt. Airy. The pair's frequently funny and profoundly disconcerting performances are a masterclass in acting."

- Talkin' Broadway | Full Review

"The real shape of things is hard to define in The Chairs. It's a slippery play that's fun but also sometimes uncomfortable. This Quintessence production brings the play’s purgatorial energy to highly entertaining places."

- Broad Street Review | Full Review

"The performance-driven nature of absurdist theater must be attractive to actors like E. Ashley Izard and Frank X... they team up here to earn the applause they received on opening night."

- The Chestnut Hill Local | Full Review

"E. Ashley Izard plays the role of “Old Woman,” as a charming combination of slut and rag doll. And I’ve never seen the inimitable Frank X carry on in baby talk."

- phindie | Full Review

click to listen to our interview with Ionesco scholar, Julia Elsky

“THERE IS A GREAT HULLABALOO”:
ABSURDIST STAGE DIRECTIONS

POST-show conversation

Dr. Bess Rowan, Assistant Professor at Villanova University, and Daniel Ciba, Director of Education, participate in a conversation about Ionesco, absurdism, and stage directions.

Bess Rowen is a theatre theorist, historian, and practitioner. Her work focuses on what she terms "affective stage directions," which are stage directions written in ways that engage the physical and emotional responses of future theatre makers. Her first book, The Lines Between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment, was published by University of Michigan Press in October 2021. She currently works as an Intimacy Choreographer and continues her training with Theatrical Intimacy Education. Bess also serves as the Performance Review Editor of The Eugene O'Neill Review and the Conference Planner for the American Theatre & Drama Society. Recent articles can be found in Modern Drama, Theatre Topics, the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, and Theatre Journal, among others.