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This Weekend in Theater

Come on, you know you love The Importance of Being Earnest. But do you know the other side of the story? Shorlty after the play's premier, Oscar Wilde underwent a series of trials that landed him in Reading Gaol as a sodomite. The trials made Wilde a criminal in his own day and a hero in ours, and they now form the basis of Moises Kaufman's ingenious play Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, in production in the Loeb Experimental Theater this weekend. The play received widespread acclaim Off Broadway, and its Harvard incarnation is sure to be every bit as exciting. So head to the Loeb Ex to find out the true story of one of the world's most famous literary and social martyrdoms.

If you'd rather get away for the weekend to a land of hilarity, fantasy and adventure-otherwise known as England, at least in the hands of Gilbert and Sullivan-then make your way to the Agassiz Theater for the Gilbert and Sullivan Players' latest production: The Pirates of Penzance. Perhaps the most famous operetta of all time, Pirates has it all-swash bucklers, police, pretty maidens and, of course, the very model of a modern major general. Tickets are going fast, so hurry soon to Radcliffe Yard.

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More intersted in new works than old classics? Then check out Split Confusion, a one-act comedy by Ned Colby '02, who is also a Crimson editor. The play follows the experiences of Georges Depardiue as he is transported to a nameless place where he meets two copies of both himself and his girlfriend from parallel dimensions. And the absurdity only begins there. But beneath the surface, this "farce with a brain" probes deeper issues of the media and identity. So make your way to the Adams Pool Theater for laughter and thought all at once.

And if you just can't get enough of student-written plays, take a stroll to the Leverett Old Library Theater for End of Motions. Written by David Kornhaber '02, who is also a Crimson executive, the play concerns the relationship between the 16th century astronomers Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe. The two great minds spent a year together when the young Kepler escaped religious persecution at home to serve as an apprentice to the renowned and aging Brahe. Through a fierce intellectual competiton, they together redefined the entire course of modern science. And, oh yes, it's something of a comedy.

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