THE DUCK VARIATIONS: first offering from A Portable Theatre

Jonathan Putnam and Geoffrey Nelson in THE DUCK VARIATIONS

A Portable Theatre, a professional theatrical touring company based in central Ohio, launched its first production in June.  The Duck Variations by David Mamet features Equity actors Jonathan Putnam and Geoffrey Nelson as two elderly men who strike up a conversation in a park and end up in a philosophical duel. Hilariously misinformed, both George and Emil are determined to be right and are unwilling to yield to the other.

The Duck Variations is one of Mamet’s first plays, written in the early 1970’s when he was in his mid-twenties.

A Portable Theatre is dedicated to performing professional theatre productions in non-traditional spaces as well as in fully-equipped theatres.  Its plays are designed to focus less on scenery and lighting — The Duck Variations requires only a park bench — and more on acting and playwriting.

Upcoming performances of Duck will be given at a college, in a church, on a backyard deck of a private home and at a retirement community. Nelson, who also directs the play, is a Founder and the Artistic Director of APT.

Actors Nelson and Putnam have frequently performed together over the past thirty years, most recently in The Mystery of Irma Vep (see earlier post).