Total Eclipse

December 13-16, 1984
Westside Arts Theatre/Downstairs


       Cast


Arthur Rimbaud - Michael Cerveris
Paul Valentine - Peter Evans
Mathilde Verlaine - Marissa Chibas
Isabelle Rimbaud - Caitlin Clarke
Eugene Krantz - Lynn Cohen
Mme. Maute de Fleurville - Ann Hillary
M. Maute de Fleurville/ Etienne Carjat Judge - I. M. Hobson
Jean Aicard - Adrian Sparks
Charles Cros/Barman - Adam Storke

Peter Evans, Michael Cerveris, Marissa Chibas
I. M. Hobson, Ann Hillary

Written by Christopher Hampton
Directed by John Tillinger

Scenery - Marjorie Bradley Kellogg
Lighting - Richard Nelson
Costumes - Bill Walker
Music - Nick Bicat
Casting - Johnson-Liff Productions
Projections - Lucie D. Grosvenor
Sound - Gary Harris
Fights - J. Allen Suddeth
Associate Producer - Mike Tolman
General Management - Gatchell & Neufield
Company Manager - David Conte
Technical Hairstylist - Tek West
Assistant to Producers - Rod Kates
Stage Managers - Marjorie Horne, Claire Beckman

A drama in two acts and 12 scenes. The action takes place in Paris, Brussels, and London
from September 10, 1871 to February 29, 1982.

Arthur Rimbaud - a remarkable but rebellious teen-age poet in 19th Century France who's
philosophy of living life to the extreme inspired Jim Morrison and the rock generation. Paul Valentine, a writer of lesser talent who is torn between his growing infatuation with Rimbaud and the domestic demands of his patient wife. Together, these two men feed each other's insatiable hunger for life and love, trying desparately to straddle the lines between knowledge and self-destruction, creativity and delusion.

It is a true story of one man's search for the ultimate poem, another man's search for the ultimate soulmate, and the brilliant madness they find together.

The play was later made into a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio (star of the movie Titanic)
as Arthur Rimbaud.