Jason
Jason was the son of Aeson, making his uncle Pelias - something that would prove to significantly complicate his life. Pelias sent Jason on a quest to find the Golden Fleece — something that would result in Jason rightfully taking his place on the throne of Iolcus in Thessaly, and which turned out to be a bigger endeavor than he could have predicted. Apart from that gargantuan undertaking, he’s most famous as the husband of Medea, who herself was instrumental in Jason’s acquiring the Golden Fleece. While on the isle of Lemnos he managed to forget Medea for enough time that he fathered twins with Hypsipyle, but it was his engagement to Creusa that put Medea over the edge and caused her to take drastic, disastrous action.
Allison Page takes Jason and his Argonauts to the early 1960s and the Cold War. While working at a small recording studio in Chicago run by his tyrannical uncle Phipps, Jason is suddenly shoved, quite literally, into the test of a lifetime. Part Hitchcockian adventure, part espionage spy thriller, part comedy, THE MCGUFFIN is a story about people who want things — need things — sometimes without even knowing why or what. It’s about putting it all on the line even if that’s incredibly foolish and will probably end with your imminent demise. It’s about liars, manipulators, fast-talkers and pulling the fucking Fleece over someone’s eyes. Thrills, gasps, and literal cliffhanging abound in a nonstop greed-fest of mythic proportions.
JASON or THE MCGUFFIN by Allison Page
Directed by Adam Sussman
Staged Reading on November 12, 2015
Allison Page is a writer/actor/comedian living in San Francisco, and writing for the Olympians Festival for the third time! She recently had her first full length as a playwright, HILARITY, produced by DIVAfest. She has written a smattering of other plays, including Hellhound, An Historically False and Completely Imagined Lunch Date Between Misters Shakespeare and Marlowe at the Maiden’s Head Pub For Aspiring Playwrights, Mrs. Youngblood, The Golden Apple of Discord, and April Showers. Born in rural northern Minnesota, she moved to San Francisco in 2008. In 2010 she joined up with sketch comedians Killing My Lobster, where she is now Creative Director. She is a regular columnist with San Francisco Theater Pub. Her non-dramatic writing has been featured in Women of Letters, Shipwreck, Write Club SF, Give Me Fiction, and Travel Tavern. This year she will also be performing a different monologue by Stuart Bousel, at the beginning of every night of the festival.