Fourth Room Theatre debuts with Closer

Iowa City — Fourth Room Theatre presents Closer by Patrick Marber at the beautiful Chait Galleries (218 E. Washington Street) on December 8, 9, 10 and 15, 16, 17 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $12. Seating is intimate and limited so please reserve your tickets by calling/texting 319-541-0038 or emailing fourthroomtheatre@gmail.com.

The cast includes Ottavia DeLuca (Alice), Rachel Korach Howell (Anna), Matthew James (Larry) and K. Michael Moore (Dan). Angie Toomsen directs.

Closer examines piercing ironies around truth, sexual passion, romance and the power—or lack thereof—they have to create true emotional intimacy.

Four London strangers meet by chance and become ensnared in a tangle of love, desire and brutal deceit. Alice, a beautiful erotic dancer, falls in love with Dan, an aspiring author and obituarist. Dan becomes obsessed with Anna, a photographer who takes his portrait for a book cover. Anna is involved with Larry, a dermatologist who becomes painfully—and sometimes comically—linked to Alice and Dan.

Closer is written with precision and a sort of structured elegance, but inside that structure is an explosive, sometimes beautiful, often very ugly collision of passion, emotion and jaw-dropping emotional cruelty.

“I have always felt Closer is a huge challenge for actors because the character work is all about locating humanizing and relatable territory inside things we hope we never do to each other,” says Toomsen. “The cast is approaching the piece with sensitivity and without judgment, which, I think, makes it absorbingly uncomfortable and darkly funny.”

Closer has been compared to Noel Coward's Private Lives, Pinter's Betrayal and even Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Time Magazine calls it “A bruising dissection of modern relationships” and Charles Isherwood (Daily Variety) calls it “brilliant and bracing…both bruising and beautiful, shatteringly funny and devastatingly sad.”

Closer contains adult language and situations and is not recommended for young viewers.

Closer is the inaugural project for Fourth Room Theatre, a new ensemble in the Iowa City/Coralville Area. Fourth Room's mission is to challenge, inspire and enlighten their audiences through committed and respectful collaboration in the Iowa City Area. The core company includes: Bryant Duffy, Ottavia DeLuca, Rachel Howell, Matthew James, Kehry Anson Lane, K. Michael Moore, Kate Thompson and Angie Toomsen. More information, website, and ways to get involved to come.