The play Awake in a World that Encourages Sleep will have its world premiere in a full production in TNC’s large Johnson Theater. The actors will be Tacey Adams, Raymond J. Barry and Joseph Culp. Set and lighting design is by Markus Maurette.

Theater for the new city / Johnson Theater

Thursday – Sunday, March 31 – April 24 2011

Thursday – Saturday at 8pm, Sunday at 3pm

For more information: http://www.theaterforthenewcity.net/

The play starts out as a conflict between Paul and Erica, whose son has been killed in an unnamed war. Paul had dodged the draft during Vietnam by claiming to be homosexual, but has apparently bragged to their son that he was a war hero. He is the boss of a consulting company, called the “Group,” that convinces the leaderships of underdeveloped countries to accept predatory development loans. He is a figure of both power and impotence. His wife, Erica, is aware of his secret and enraged that he would persuade their son to go to war. While they argue over their son’s death, Paul leaves the stage.

Enter Edward, who works for Paul but is now quitting his highly sensitive position. The two men have been engaged in stealth operations together and there is enormous tension between them. Erica is strongly drawn to Edward. As the two men contend for her favor, the play conveys the eerie feeling that things are way out of our control. Political issues and fear of the authorities are raised amid attraction, loneliness and neediness in all three characters.

The play evokes the doubt and suspicion that was born in the Iran Contra affair and continues to the present, with its fracturing of trust and its feeling of overwhelming helplessness as our nation projects its power worldwide. A small coterie runs covert operations but the assumption is that they represent all of us. Edward is aware of this; Paul is not and Erica is becoming aware through Edward’s influence.

War is raging within hearing distance while our characters perch on park benches, reading Tolstoy between spurts of intense, often humorous conversation. The play is stylized, orchestrated with overlapping dialogue, making use of Viola Spolin’s techniques, which the Open Theater incorporated into its theater. Non-sequitur logic establishes unpredictability in the action. Mr. Barry’s writing is distinctly Albee-esque in flavor, which he claims is a curious by-product of his work.

A work in progress by Raymond J. Barry, a veteran actor/playwright and founding member of New York’s legendary Open Theater.

A tale of Love, Politics, and Economic Hit Men in a world of Endless War.

Performed by Tacey Adams, Raymond J. Barry, and Joseph Culp.

This is a workshop piece growing with each performance.

January 14th through February 6th 2011

Friday and Saturdays 8:00pm, Sundays 7:00pm

For more information, visit the Electric Lodge website

Raymond J. Barry is the 2010 recipient of the Career Achievement Award at the fourth annual Gasparilla Film Festival.

Read GIFF Press Release

The Gasparilla International Film Festival (“GIFF”) is one of Florida’s largest and fastest growing film festivals.  GIFF, organized and operated by the non-profit Tampa Film Institute, is dedicated to expanding art opportunities in the Tampa Bay community through the medium and culture of independent film.  GIFF’s specific mission statement is to promote opportunities for film makers and film fans alike to create and enjoy independent film in the Tampa Bay area.  GIFF’s most notable contribution to the community is to host an annual, competitive film festival every March in downtown Tampa and South Tampa bringing in over 100 films from around the world, with a sidebar focused on local film.  GIFF also brings independent, international programming to the Tampa Bay community year-round through the prestigious Global Lens Series and other independent film screenings.

Videos of Raymond J. Barry’s speech

Introduction

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Raymond J. Barry’s speech

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Walk Hard, The Dewey Cox Story

Walk Hard, directed by Jake Kasdan and featuring Raymond J. Barry as Pa Cox, premieres December 21, 2007

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Steel City, Directed by Brian Jun

Director: Brian Jun

Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival, 2006

Raymond J. Barry has been nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male (2007)

“Quietly absorbing and incisive. A drama in which even the most minor character registers as a full, complicated presence a person who deserves his or her own movie.” Entertainment Weekly

Interview with the Assassin, directed by Neil Burger

Director: Neil Burger

A playwright, theater director and first-rank character actor, Raymond J. Barry has given rich, honest performances in dozens of movies and tv programs, including Year of the Dragon, Dead Man Walking,  Born on the Fourth of July (as Ron Kovic’s dad). This is a rare star turn for him, and he never strikes a false note. His workingman’s intensity and lean physique make him credible as a killing machine that never lost his predatory confidence. In every scene Barry plays, you sense Walter’s volatile mix of emotions–pride, fear, anger, dread, guilt, disgust–yet Barry never italicizes any of them, and a few flicker across his face so quickly that you might have to see the movie a second time to catch them. In a just world, he’d get an Oscar nomination as Best Actor.  New York Press

Ohlinger is played by Raymond J. Barry, who inhabits this formidable, dead-eyed operative — think Clint Eastwood meets Jack Kevorkian — with an untheatrical conviction that makes him seem exactly what he says he is: a sociopathic military cipher who was hired to kill the president and did so without flinching. Entertainment Weekly

In Mr. Barry, a hardworking character actor whose résumé includes “Training Day” and “Dead Man Walking,” Mr. Burger has a performer who can dart between stentorian self-assurance and cringing pathos, maintaining his character’s ambiguity until the final sequence of this resourceful and ingenious entertainment. New York Times.

The smartest move Neil Burger makes is to keep his sights tightly focused on Barry’s bristling paranoia. Whether softening his military cadences with a touch of the South or shimmying down the outside wall of a motel, the veteran character actor goes a long way toward padding what is a clever conceit. His homespun menace keeps you watching. Los Angeles Times

After striving in vain to cast an unknown in the role of the laconic assassin, Burger went with Barry, a veteran New York stage and film actor. This proves to be a stroke of luck. His deadpan expression and steely, matter-of-fact voice project the chilling demeanor of a man torn by his claim to fame: Pride in a difficult job well done mingles with the shame that an ex-Marine would gun down the country’s chief executive. The Hollywood Reporter

Raymond Barry gives a brilliant performance as Walter Ohlinger, the smoldering, bizarrely unpredictable — yet calculating ex-Marine who burns to tell the tale of how he was the real killer of John F. Kennedy. Variety

“It’s not only fun, but masterful from a purely technical standpoint. Still, the key lies in the performances. Not once did I catch anyone “acting;” all of the actors are wonderful, especially Raymond J. Barry (as Walter the “assassin”), who deserves, but stands no chance of receiving, an Oscar nomination.” Denver Film Festival

Trailer

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