Director • Translator • Playwright     

Rob Melrose

Photos by Rob Melrose

"This train of fools—highly reminiscent of Twilight Zone meets Sam Shepard—is full of recognizably drifting dreamers, trying as fast as a bullet train can go to outrace their creative confusion, festering memories, delusions of grandeur, and dogged compulsions. They’re a lot like the audience they face."

—Lawrence Bommer

Stage and Cinema​

THE RECKLESS RUTHLESS BRUTAL CHARGE OF IT, OR THE TRAIN PLAY
by Liz Duffy Adams
Crowded Fire Theater

Rebecca Novick, Artistic Director
​October 4 - November, 2002

Directed by Rob Melrose
Set Design by Michael Locher
Costume Design by Jocelyn Leiser
Lighting Design by David Sinaiko
Sound Design by Paul Lancour
Composer Darin Wilson
Production Stage Management by Natasha Pesic

​Featuring: Richard Bolster, Elizabeth Bullard, Lasse Christiansen, James S. Craft, Michael Ferris Gibson, Paul Gerrior, David Koppel, Linda Jones, Robert Marinez, Gwyneth Richards 

​"Whatever the reasons, these relatively modest productions were responsible for some of the more striking theatrical moments this year. I’ve more or less forgotten Baz Luhrmann’s La Bohème, but Crowded Fire’s production of Liz Duffy Adams’s Train Play (subtitled The Reckless Ruthless Brutal Charge of It) left me with a resonant final image: American Manifest Destiny as the irrepressible enthusiasm of a prepubescent girl whose comic book alter ego gleefully leads a charge of startled immigrants (and two natives, an effete writer and a guilt-ridden scientist) from their train’s final berth out into the post-apocalyptic unknown."

—Robert Avila, 

San Francisco Bay Guardian

THE RECKLESS RUTHLESS BRUTAL CHARGE OF IT - CROWDED FIRE THEATER