by AMY BARRATT

The third New Classical Theatre Festival, opening next week, promises to be bigger and more ambitious than ever. Where previously the "festival" consisted of two shows playing in repertory, this year's NCTF is truly worthy of the term, with eight productions in three venues over four weeks. The program includes ancient and modern classics as well as new works that reference classicism in some way.

Companies like SaBooge and Théâtre Déséquilibrium have been invited to participate, but the festival kicks off with two very different Gravy Bath shows, both being performed by the same cast of 16.

"We wanted to do a brand new play and a classic," says Gravy Bath founder Anthony Kokx. "We chose one of the oldest stories around, Oedipus Rex, and paired it with a brand new Gravy Bath creation, called This Table."

With Oedipus, the focus is on telling the story in an intimate way. "We don't want people to watch it and think, ‘That can't happen to me!'" says Kokx, who directs both pieces. He is using a modern, poetic translation of Sophocles' play, which has been "shaved down" to rid it of literary flourishes that do nothing to advance the action.

Kokx gets a writing credit for This Table, but in typical Gravy Bath fashion, the entire company contributed ideas.

"It's a simple story," he says, "on a theme that's close to all of us: family." He is quick to add that it's not an epic like last year's Kali Yuga, a fascinating but exhausting five-hour exploration of history and religion. Although the action of the play spans a century, it will be concentrated into a two-hour performance. As always, Kokx says, they have tried to take what worked from the previous production, and leave the rest behind.

"There were over-staged scenes in Kali Yuga, repetitive scenes, " he says. "This time, we want to make the work more human."

In This Table, a patriarch builds a table at the beginning of the 20th century. This piece of furniture is then passed down through the generations of his family. The table sits on stage at all times and in a way dictates what parts of the characters' stories are told: for instance, a son goes off to war, but instead of following him, the play stays with the people at home, and shows how they are affected by world events. Kokx, who also directs, asked the actors to bring their own family histories to the rehearsal room, and a lot of the final text came out of their improvisations. He told the actors not to reference things in other rooms. "If a scene took the action away from the table, even though it might be good, we said we don't need it."

Although Gravy Bath and the NCTF are still benefiting from an association with the Segal Theatre (of the Saidye Bronfman Centre), which has given them almost free run of their costume and prop shops, none of this year's productions will be staged there. The two Gravy Bath shows are in the Monument-National's Studio space, and other festival productions are at the Théâtre Ste-Catherine and Théâtre Calixa-Lavallée.

This Table opens Tuesday, Aug. 16; Oedipus Rex opens Wednesday, Aug. 17, and both run through Aug. 27 at Monument-National. Tickets $18/$15, 871-2224

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