What do you get when you combine Frank Lloyd Wright, suspect European accents, and a horse costume? Mazumdar Award winning play The Natural Horse by T. Adamson at Alleyway Theatre.
Alleyway audiences can expect a theatrical experience like no other. “It’s such a wild play. I think there’s a sweet spot in the daringness of a playwright’s work where they can create a world that is so totally bizarre and complex and wholly original, that we as an audience buy into it and love it for all of its unconventional innovative storytelling,” shared Chris J Handley, Artistic Director.
The plot of The Natural Horse from the Alleyway’s website is as follows:
Inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1954 book The Natural House, this daringly wild play about ex-Soviet immigrants in suburban Wisconsin received Alleyway’s 2022 Maxim Mazumdar New Play Award, and was a finalist for the 2023 O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. When eldest daughter Masha brings home a feral horse named Goodboy to live under mom and dad’s roof, the play explodes with strange silliness and magical beauty. An incredibly theatrical look at how we search for people and spaces to call home, The Natural Horse is a breathtakingly ambitious and subversively hilarious exploration of the human connection.
“If the playwright aims for this and falls short or goes too far, the play just doesn’t land. The Natural Horse hits it right in the pocket,” continued Handley. “It wins the Goldilocks rule (not too hot, not too cold, but just right). It is something we’ve never seen before, and at the same time feels so comfortable. The Mazumdar Award has to go to the play we feel best represents what Alleyway stands for, and T.’s storytelling here hits all the marks of authentic, theatrical, and bold works of theatre. It was a no-brainer. And out of 1200 entries, that’s saying something.”
Playwright T. Adamson is excited to see The Natural Horse at The Alleyway. “I’ve never written a play that requires a giant puppet operated by two people before, and it was something that not every theater would be brave enough to to tackle and to handle. There’s a lot in this play that’s messy, that’s funny, that’s outlandish. Only certain theaters are willing to take on a project like this, and so it’s been really exciting to work with Alleyway and just see how game they are in tackling these really fantastical, difficult to execute, but I think, will be very satisfying, theatrical ideas.
Adamson shared what he hopes audiences take away from The Natural Horse. “I really wrote this play thinking about ‘What would I like to see on stage? What would be sort of delightful or exciting or joyous to me?’ And that was a lot of the energy that I tried to put into this show. I think if anything, people come out of it thinking, ‘Oh, wow, I didn’t realize you could do something like that in the theater,” that would be really exciting to me. I also think there are reflections on the meaning of family and finding a home that I hope people have space to reflect on among the wacky hijinks.”
The Natural Horse is onstage at Alleyway Theatre from October 20 – November 11. Tickets are available here.
The Natural Horse
By T. Adamson
Directed by Robyn Lee Horn
Alleyway Theatre
1 Curtain Up Alley, Buffalo, NY
October 20 – November 11 | 7:30 PM evening, 3:30 PM Matinee $30-$43 | Tickets
