SF Chronicle: Director and playwright reunite for ‘warplay’

by Lily Janiak, from the San Francisco Chronicle, May 30, 2017.

Ben Randle has been directing JC Lee plays in the Bay Area since before the playwright hit the big time, writing for Girls, Looking and How to Get Away With Murder, and this month the pair reunite for the world premiere of warplay at New Conservatory Theatre Center.

The two-hander follows Achilles and Patroclus, or A (Ed Berkeley) and P (JD Scalzo) as they’re called in the script, who are passionate friends in The Iliad and lovers in Troilus and Cressida.

Don’t think the lofty language of Homer or Shakespeare, though. One of the first lines in Lee’s play (at least in a recent draft) goes, “You’re 34% sociopathic.” The Julliard-trained Lee has always had a knack for blending the sacred and the profane, the contemporary and the mythic. In his rendering, the duo is both of our time, with memories of moms in minivans, and not.

Tickets for warplay on sale on NCTC's website.

Ed Berkeley, JD Scalzo. Photo by Lois Tema.