The Thousandth Night at MetroStage

The Thousandth Night

MetroStage
1201 North Royal Street Alexandria

An actor arrested in paris for presenting subversive material attempts to avoid his fate by playing 38 characters from the Arabian Nights, from Ali Baba to Shaherazad. A remarkable blend of comedy and pathos set in occupied France in 1943. "an innocent caught up in the evil of the Nazi regime, juxtaposed with the frothy Arabian Tales" - LA Times

Thru - May 18, 2014

Price: $50

Show Type: Drama

Running Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes, no intermission

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The Thousandth Night Reviews

Average Rating based on 4 reviews

Highly Recommended
Recommended
Somewhat Recommended
Not Recommended

Washington Post - Recommended

"...So despite the script's open invitation, Vreeke and Kyd's show never devolves into a cheesy acting tour de force. Their healthy respect for the grim historical situation keeps the inevitable sentimentality (not to say self-congratulation) of Wolf's play in check. The skillful, dignified and brisk 75-minute evening is nicely fleshed out by persuasive railway sound effects and the occasional sweep of a military searchlight."

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- Nelson Pressley

DC Theater Arts - Highly Recommended

"...There are so many layers of complexity to The Thousandth Night. Guy de Bonheur is an actor with a traveling company of players who are stuck in Paris during the occupation of France. As Guy says wryly, “How were we to know Herr Hitler was opening here the same week?” One by one, members of his acting company have fled, disappeared, or been deported. Guy is arrested for “propagating subversive material” and is being deported. When his train is sabotaged by members of the French resistance, he escapes from the platform and seeks refuge in the train station. His one chance for freedom before the train starts moving again is to win the support of a group of French gendarmes (the audience) by entertaining them with “amusements” that are not subversive. Guy becomes a male Scheherazade as he relates and acts all the parts in some of the most famous of the Tales of the Arabian Nights, spinning out stories in a chance to win his freedom."

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- Diane Jackson Schnoor

MD Theatre Guide - Recommended

"...Despite the predictability of the script, Marcus Kyd’s acting talents and the solid production support behind him make The Thousandth Night worth seeing."

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- Elliot Lanes

DCTheatreScene - Recommended

Guy de Bonheur (Marcus Kyd), one of the last, if not the last, remaining members of an acting troupe in France under Nazi occupation. We, the audience, take on the role of a room full of gendarmes, Bonheur’s fellow Frenchman who are taking a backseat role to the Nazi gestapo. Bonheur’s been charged with performing subversive material, but his train to the prison camp was sabotaged, and he’s taking advantage of the brief time to beg us, the French collaborators, to quietly look the other way and let him run off. Why? Because, surely, there was some mistake in putting a simple actor on a train with political enemies of the Nazis.

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- Brett Steven Abelman

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The Thousandth Night at MetroStage