Photo: Joan Marcus, 2017 
Photo: Joan Marcus, 2017 
Photo: Joan Marcus, 2017 
Photo: Joan Marcus, 2017 
Photo: Joan Marcus, 2017 
Photo: Joan Marcus, 2017 
Photo: Joan Marcus, 2017 
Photo: Joan Marcus, 2017 
Photo: Joan Marcus, 2017 
 

The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of one Family. Part 1: Hungry

by Richard Nelson
Direction: Richard Nelson (New York)

Guest performance during FIND 2017

March to November 2016. The kitchen in the Gabriel family home in South Street, Rhinebeck, a small town 100 miles north of New York. In these three plays, real-time snapshots allow us to follow not only the American presidential election but also a year in the life of a middle-class family and the private hopes and fears of its members. In his new trilogy Richard Nelson, who presented his play-cycle »The Apple Family Plays« at FIND 2015, interweaves big national events with small occurrences in private lives and presents us with a portrait of a world in which the personal, social, cultural and political are all inseparably connected. The three parts of »The Gabriels« premiered on the days in the election year on which they are set – when neither the writer, actors nor characters in the cycle knew the results of the votes.

Part 1: Hungry

»Like most other humans, I am hungry«. M.F.K. Fisher
Friday, 4 March 2016, 6pm–8pm. It is the Friday after Super Tuesday, the day when the primaries take place in many states. Thomas Gabriel, a relativelysuccessful dramatist, passed away a few months ago. Now his next of kin, Thomas’ widow Mary, his ex-wife Karin, his brother George and wife Hannah, his sister Joyce and mother Patricia, have gathered to remember him at the family home. While they prepare ratatouille and apple crumble together, they talk: about their small town in which the newly- arrived wealthy are making life increasingly difficult for the long-established residents and about Hillary Clinton who is of the same generation as them and who they regard with a mixture of scepticism and hope.

>>> Essay about the production in Pearson's Preview: Home Cooking and Intimacy: Richard Nelson’s »The Gabriels«

All Dates

The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of one Family. Part 1: Hungry
> On 31 March at 7pm and on 2 April at 2pm
The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of one Family. Part 2: What did you expect?
> On 1 April at 6pm and on 2 April on 4.45pm
The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of one Family. Part 3: Women of a Certain Age
> On 1 April at 9pm and on 2 April at 8.30pm

»The Gabriels« Package Prize

If you buy tickets for all three parts of the series, the price for the third ticket will be reduced by 50%.
You can either book package 1 with the shows on 31 March and 1 April, or package 2 with all shows on 2 April.

A production of The Public Theater New York (Artistic Director: Oskar Eustis, Executive Director: Patrick Willingham). Presented in cooperation with Theater der Welt 2017, Hamburg.  

Direction: Richard Nelson
Duration: ca. 95 minutes