Join us for the World Premiere performances of Darwinii: The Comeuppance of Man at the 2009 Philly Fringe Festival, Fridays & Saturdays, September 4, 5, 11, & 12 SOLD OUT at 6:30 PM at the APS Museum, 104 S. 5th St. (between Chestnut and Walnut), Philadelphia, PA. Limited seating. Seriously. Tickets $10 on sale now at the Live Arts-Fringe website, or at the Fringe Box Office, 215-413-1318. Please plan to arrive early as the show begins promptly and 6:30 PM, and there will be NO LATE SEATING.

Images of Darwin, Rhea darwinii, and T. H. Huxley’s skeletons courtesy APS Museum

Created by Brett Keyser and New York playwright Glen Berger, this solo performance features Keyser in the role of Cristóbal, an Argentine man accused of various crimes, including stealing original Charles Darwin manuscripts from rare book libraries around the world. Why? Because he’s convinced he’s the great-great-great-etc… bastard-grandson of the father of Natural Selection. As part of his sentence he must deliver a public apology, during which he digresses, with flamboyant intensity and bawdy humor, into the story of his life, growing up as an orphan in Tierra del Fuego and inadvertently becoming an expert Darwinologist (not to mention an international criminal), exploiting every opportunity to prove his pedigree. The performance is a tango-tinged dance of life, a fresh take on some of Darwin’s ideas about the struggle for survival, sexual selection, the origin of species, and the descent of man.

Darwinii evolved from an initial workshop of improvisation and interplay between Keyser, Berger, and Canadian fellow traveller Ker Wells. The creative team also includes Tracy Broyles of Spiral Q Puppet Theatre on props and costumes, and Laylage Courie of Brooklyn-based Luminous Work, providing the voice of a renowned fictional Darwin scholar.

Darwinii was commissioned by the American Philosophical Society (APS) Museum, and supported in part by a grant from the Pennsylvania Humanities Council.