UNDRESS ME

Empty Sea Company presents Undress Me, a darkly funny drama of sex, love, and desperation as part of the 2014 Winnipeg and Calgary Fringe Festivals.

 

Julian, a part-time sex cam performer, is obsessed with alcohol, his own body and having sex with as many men and women as possible. But his life begins to come into focus when he returns from his brother’s wedding rehearsal with a black eye. As he gets more and more drunk and his cocky attitude begins to crumble, his hidden demons rise to the surface and he hurtles toward catastrophe.  Undress Me combines humour, pathos, and sex appeal to tell the story of Julian, who has a long dark night of the soul as he finally addresses the escalating disasters that threaten to tear his life apart, from his fractured family to his alcoholism to his secret life online. It all leads to a choice he has to make, with his whole world in the balance.

 

Undress Me is a new play written and performed by Kevin P. Gabel, five-time Winnipeg Fringe veteran who’s appeared in such shows as the original production of Brain Cravers: The Curse of Extollo (CBC’s “Best Comedy” of the 2011 Winnipeg Fringe).  For his performance in Sarasvàti Productions’ Eden, the Winnipeg Free Press commended Gabel for his “good job of modulating [his character’s] emotional ups and downs”, a skill necessary for his performance as Undress Me’s Julian, who swings from smirking confidence to blind rage to crushing melancholy from moment to moment.

 

Directing Undress Me is Ivan Henwood, whose recent directing work includes last year’s Winnipeg Fringe production of Tom Noonan’s The Wife (4 ½ stars, Winnipeg Free Press) and the Black Hole Theatre’s production of Judith Thompson’s emotionally complex Lion in the Streets, featuring Gabel in multiple roles.

 

Written and Performed by Kevin P. Gabel, Direction & Dramaturgy by Ivan Henwood, Stage Managed by Jonathan Kindzierski, Makeup Design by Sydney Wiebe, Promo Photography by Robin Blanchard.