The Evening
The actor playing Beatrice describes Richard Maxwell's father’s death. Beatrice is a bartender/prostitute in a bar. Asi is a fighter and Cosmo is his manager. Cosmo wants to celebrate Asi's win, but Asi wants to talk about getting more fights. Beatrice tells Asi she wants to go to Istanbul, but Asi wants her to stay. A band enters and sets up as Asi takes his steroids. Cosmo wants them all to have fun. They dance as the band plays. Asi realizes Cosmo gave Beatrice money for her trip and gets angry. Asi and Cosmo fight. Asi steals Beatrice’s phone. Beatrice pulls a gun on the two men and gets her phone back. Beatrice tells Cosmo she wants to escape. They talk about whether they're losers or not. Cosmo encourages her to go. He tries for her gun, and fails. Beatrice orders the men to say what they are. She shoots Asi. He doesn't die. She shoots Cosmo and he doesn't die either. Beatrice removes their squib packs. She takes out her suitcase and steps out of the bar and it comes apart. The bar and band are struck. Asi and Cosmo exit. The stage fills with fog and turns white. The actor playing Beatrice puts on snow camouflage, then describes a journey through a vast landscape.
CREDITS

Written and directed by Richard Maxwell

Beatrice: Cammisa Buerhaus
Cosmo: Jim Fletcher
Asi: Brian Mendes

Band: James Moore, Andie Springer, David Zuckerman

Set and Lights: Sascha van Riel
Costumes: Kaye Voyce
Producer: Regina Vorria
Technical Director: Bill Kennedy
Stage Technician: Dirk Stevens
Dramaturge: Molly Grogan
Original Music: Richard Maxwell, arranged by the musicians

Production History

The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis 2015
On the Boards, Seattle 2015
The Kitchen, New York 2015
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburg 2015
Culturgest, Lisbon 2016
Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels 2016
Teatro Arena del Sole-Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, Bologna 2016
Festival d’Automne à Paris/Nanterre-Amandiers, 2016
Théâtre Garonne, Toulouse 2016
La Filature, Mulhouse 2016
Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens 2016

Press

Spalding Gray Prize Goes to Richard Maxwell, The New York Times, 2014
Richard Maxwell's "The Evening" at The Walker Art Center: Three Characters in Search of Jell-o Shots', The Tangential,2015
The Place That Is Not the Place: An Evening With Richard Maxwell, Memeteria, 2015
Dynamic Duo, The New Yorker, 2015
Review: In Richard Maxwell's 'The Evening,' Going Gentle Into the Night, or Not, The New York Times, 2015
The Evening, Time Out New York, 2015
Richard Maxwell Takes You to Hell and Back in The Evening, Village Voice, 2015
Bar Exam: Richard Maxwell’s ‘The Evening’, Hyperallergic, 2015
The Evening, This Week in New York, 2015
Olivia Jane Smith on Richard Maxwell's "The Evening" at The Kitchen, New York Theatre Review, 2015
Death Becomes Her, Artforum, 2015
On Richard Maxwell & the Rupture of Real, Howlround, 2015

Support

Commissioned by 2014 Spalding Gray Award from the consortium of Performance Space 122, the Andy Warhol Museum, On the Boards, and the Walker Art Center.

A co-production of Kunstenfestivaldesarts, with additional generous support provided by Greene Naftali Gallery and The Kitchen. Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York Theater Program, the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and an Alliance of Resident Theaters' New York/Creative Space Grant. Production design support provided by the Edith Lutyens and Norman Bel Geddes Design Enhancement Fund, a program of the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York (A.R.T./New York). Made possible with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council and the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.