Come See Geneva!
Online ticket sales are now closed. Please come early to The Acrosstown Repertory Theater (619 S Main St Gainesville, Florida 32601) and buy in cash at the door! We had an amazing opening night! We look forward to seeing you Saturday May 25th at 8:00pm and Sunday May 26th at 2:00pm.
If you would like to join the Gainesville Shaw Society, please email us your contact information: gainesvilleshawsociety@gmail.com.
Your ticket purchase to Geneva will count as your membership fee.
If you would like to join the Gainesville Shaw Society, please email us your contact information: gainesvilleshawsociety@gmail.com.
Your ticket purchase to Geneva will count as your membership fee.
A Synopsis of “Geneva”
By Krsnaa Fitch
Never before was there a time so transformational as the moments before the world went to war.
In this time, our play begins.
We enter the International Committee for Intellectual Cooperation in Geneva Switzerland. An organization meant to bring together the great political powers of the world, to cooperate. Unfortunately the only employee present is a bubbly typist who is blissfully unaware of the importance of anything. She proceeds to enthusiastically receive a string of very interesting and eccentric characters.
The first visitor, a German, explains his dilemma,
“I must begin by explaining that I am a Jew…… My business here is to ask the Committee to apply to the court for a warrant against the responsible ruler. I charge him with assault and battery, burglary—“
These words, a truth so important, were spoken on stage in 1938, when Hitler was in the height of his power and engrossed in persecution.
Following The Jew, we meet The Bishop, The Commissar, The Deaconess, The Widow and many more characters, who wave pistols, faint, and make speeches of greatness and grandeur. We get to experience the representations of Hitler, Mussolini, and Francisco Franco, and watch them crash against each other. In the end every one of them shows their true nature as the world is plunged into a sudden, and prophetic crises.
George Bernard Shaw was known for his outrageous personality, comical wit, and controversial opinions. However, one of his greatest contributions was his ability to stir up passion for essential topics. His gumption, his bravery, his strong backbone standing up to some of the most brutal dictators of all time in their own time, is what makes this play remarkable.
Therefore, we are celebrating his work, and diving into the thoughts of his characters to better understand our own thoughts, and the people of our own time. Because the universal categories of opinion we witness on stage endure through-out generations in our real world. Unfortunately so do genocide, prejudice, slavery, and political corruption. They are current issues, only the names and dates have changed.
Perhaps by hearing these words of Shaw, we will be inspired to stand up for what we know is right, without hesitation or fear, and become a powerful voice for our own time.
