Red Bull Theatre presents
METROMANIACS
by David Ives
adapbed from Alexis Piron's Le Métromaine
directed by Michael Kahn
The Duke on 42nd Street, 229 West 42nd Street. April 10 - May 26, 2018
t’s springtime in Paris, 1738. Metromania, the poetry craze, is all the rage. Damis, a young, would-be poet with a serious case of verse-mania falls for a mysterious poetess from Breton, Meriadec de Peaudoncqville (say it). She turns out to be none other than a wealthy gentleman (yes, that’s right) with a touch of the mania himself—looking to unload his sexy but dimwitted daughter—who also just happens to be cuckoo for couplets. Soon scheming servants, verbal acrobatics, and mistaken identities launch a breathless series of twists and turns in this breezy “translaptation” of a rediscovered French farce by comedic master David Ives (The Liar, Venus in Fur, All in the Timing).
“Frisky, competitive wordplay and high-octane mix ups ...almost criminally enjoyable.” —Washington Post
“Ives [is] wizardly … magical and funny … a master of language. He uses words for their meanings, sounds and associations, spinning conceits of a sort I’ve not seen or heard before. He’s an original.” —The New York Times
“Disguises and ruses and verse-ical abuses.” —BroadwayWorld