Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

30° Evanston, IL
Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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With Brit wit, lunacy rules the upper class

“The Ruling Class” opens with an accidental suicide so abrupt, so grotesque and so kinky that you catch yourself laughing. The dark satire, a breakthrough for British writer Peter Barnes, stages the turn to madness of the Gurneys, a musty clan of the English nobility.

The play, produced by WAVE Productions, follows the unraveling of the Gurneys’ morbid Victorian mores after Jack — the new heir to the family’s seat in the House of Lords and a paranoid schizophrenic who thinks he’s God — suddenly appears in the manor drawing room, besieging the household with the force of all his lunacy.

Under Alex Harvey’s direction, the 11-member cast explores the whole range of the script’s comedy. From the supreme absurdity of an avian mating ritual — performed by Jack (Communication senior Erik Hellman) and his fianc

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881
With Brit wit, lunacy rules the upper class