Nature Theater of Oklahoma Rambo Solo

“Nature Theater of Oklahoma has forged a sharp, witty and utterly distinctive performance style and have hit the mother lode in Rambo Solo…performed with hilarious conviction.”—Variety

For Rambo Solo Nature Theater turned to actor Zachary Oberzan and asked him to tell the story of First Blood, one of his favorite books, about John Rambo, a shaggy bent-on-revenge Vietnam vet, and his life-or-death struggle with a small-town cop in the backwoods of Kentucky. (The book was adapted for the 1982 movie starring Sylvester Stallone.) Directors Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper then staged a series of minutely choreographed performances based on Oberzan's remembrance of the macho adventure in his cramped apartment as he used personal belongings as props and made a video of each performance.

On stage you’ll see a triptych of these video recreations juxtaposed with Oberzan performing his live reenactment again, all using the original verbatim phone interview for its text. Rambo Solo becomes an engrossing funhouse mirror that reveals the fluctuating nature of each performance despite all attempts to replicate it exactly, as well as a brilliant reflection of its subject matter. As Zack says of First Blood in the show, “it’s not what many people would call great literature…but for me, it is just as grand and just as universal as-as-as Hamlet.”

Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s Romeo and Juliet and Rambo Solo are productions of International Summerfestival / Kampnagel Hamburg and Salzburger Festspiele in coproduction with Kaaitheater Brussels, Workspace Brussels, Buda Kunstcentrum, Noorderzon Festival, Grand Theatre Groningen, and the Wexner Center for the Arts.

The Wexner Center for the Arts is a partner of the National Performance Network (NPN). This project is made possible in part by support from the NPN Performance Residency Program. Major contributors to NPN include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency), the MetLife Foundation, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.

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