Recipient of the
2012 American Theatre Wing
National Theatre Company Award

January 6–22, 2006

Joseph McGrath in The Fever
Photo by Cynthia Meier

View the full poster

The Fever

3-page review by Iris J. Arnesen in the Spring/Summer, 2006 The Opera Glass

One Man's Malady:
J. Andrew McGrath Excels as a Sick, Delirious Traveler in the One-Man, Intimate The Fever

Review by James Reel in the January 12 Tucson Weekly

One Man on Folding Chair Puts On Quite a Show

Review by Chuck Graham in the January 12 Tucson Citizen

Fever Rages with Worldly Inequities

Review by Kathleen Allen in the January 12 Arizona Daily Star

The Fever Breaks at Rogue Theatre

Preview by Kathleen Allen in the January 5 Arizona Daily Star

Sometimes I was fine. I remember one morning—a marvelous blue sky—I had my hair cut. Gentle hands molded my hair so that it fit over the shape of my scalp like a cap. Then I bought myself a pair of comfortable socks, and then I looked at them carefully, and I bought two more pairs, because it’s not easy to find the kind of socks I like! Then I went to a sweet little restaurant and had lunch with a woman in a lemon-yellow suit whom I’d known since I was eight. But then I got into a taxi, and as I was riding across the city, that feeling, that sickness, filled me up again. It seemed to start in my stomach and move out through my legs, my chest. And my stomach was beating, it was just like a heart. A cold sweat on my forehead and neck. I wasn’t me. When the taxi arrived, the person who got out of it wasn’t me. I was nowhere. The person who paid the driver was actually no one.

A nameless person from a privileged world, suffering from a sense of disconnection from his comfortable life, travels to a country in the midst of civil war. Suddenly deliriously ill, the narrator collapses in a hotel bathroom, and confronts an internal chorus of conflicting voices: dreams of comfort, images of physical and economic violence, accusations of indifference, and cold-blooded arguments in favor of oppression. The central question: what, if anything, is a morally consistent way to live in the world as it is?

—Eli Bishop, A Wallace Shawn Reference

Our thanks to Jenny Carrillo, David Hoffman,, Sandra Wortzel,
Harlan Hokin, Ned Schaper, Kathy Allen, Bill Killian, James Reel,
Chuck Graham, Rebecca Hanley, Jesse Greenberg, Patrick Baliani,
and all our advertisers for their support of this production.

Cast Biography

	Joseph McGrath is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Drama, where he studied with Michael Kahn and Michael Langham. A member of Actors’ Equity Association, he has toured with John Houseman’s Acting Company, appearing in Pericles, Tartuffe, Twelfth Night, and The Country Wife. At the Utah Shakespearean Festival, Joe appeared as Horatio in Hamlet, Glendower in Henry IV, Part I, and Borachio in Much Ado About Nothing. In New York City, he directed Rough Magic: A Shakespeare Quartet. In Tucson, he is a frequent performer with Ballet Tucson appearing as an Ugly Stepsister in Cinderella, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, VanHelsing in Dracula and, perennially, as Drosselmeyer in The Nutcracker. He has also performed with the Arizona Theatre Company, Tucson Art Theatre, Arizona OnStage, Green Thursday, Damesrocket Theatre, and Old Pueblo Playwrights in such roles as Trigorin in The Seagull, Sam Byck in Assassins, John in Oleanna, and This Rock in Anger Box. Joe is also a scenic designer and owns, with his wife Regina Gagliano, Sonora Theatre Works, which produces theatrical scenery and draperies. Most recently, Joe directed The Rogue Theatre’s production of The Balcony and appeared in Arizona Opera’s Threepenny Opera.

Performance Schedule for The Fever

Friday Jan 6, 7:30 p.m., Center for Expressive Arts, 3838 East Ft. Lowell Road   see map
Saturday Jan 7, 7:30 p.m., Mat Bevel Institute, 530 North Stone Avenue   see map
Sunday Jan 8, 2:00 p.m., Hotel Congress, 311 East Congress Street   see map

Friday Jan 13, 7:30 p.m., Center for Expressive Arts, 3838 East Ft. Lowell Road   see map
Saturday Jan 14, 7:30 p.m., Mat Bevel Institute, 530 North Stone Avenue   see map
Sunday Jan 15, 2:00 p.m., Hotel Congress, 311 East Congress Street   see map

Friday Jan 20, 7:30 p.m., Center for Expressive Arts, 3838 East Ft. Lowell Road   see map
Saturday Jan 21, 7:30 p.m., Mat Bevel Institute, 530 North Stone Avenue   see map
Sunday Jan 22, 2:00 p.m., Hotel Congress, 311 East Congress Street   see map