An actor and his best friend, a New York police officer, have tickets to see a play on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The officer cancels at the last minute and his friend gives the extra ticket to an unassuming man while waiting for the theater to open. . . This rather ordinary gesture sets the stage for playwright Louis Mascolo’s new dramatic play, Dying Like Ignacio. Mascolo weaves a tale of passion and suspense in which the limits of friendship are challenged, the consequences of sacrifice are questioned and the line between obsession and abuse are drawn.
Not since Oliver Twisted has a play taken me off guard in quite the way that Dying Like Ignacio did. It’s as moving as it is disturbing both because of its subject matter and in particular how each character’s relationship to it shifts over time. On the surface, Dying Like Ignacio is a dark tale about BDSM fantasies gone awry but it’s the relationship between Michael, played by a brilliant Jeff Hathcoat, and his best friend Maureen (Meredith Lark) that is most gripping because it drags “regular” people into the space between fantasy and abuse and while I had moments where I squirmed in my seat I was equally riveted by the complexity of the actors.
Dying Like Ignacio by Louis Mascolo
March 30 – April 10, 2016
Workshop Theater’s Main Stage Theater
TICKETS
Produced by Willow Mill Productions, Directed by Karen Case Cook, Featuring *Michael Basile, Jeff Hathcoat, *Meredith Lark, *Thomas Raniszewski // *Actors’ Equity Association.