Echo Theater Company presents darkly funny, off–beat ‘Dido of Idaho’

The Echo Theater Company’s newest production is a very dark comedy about the lengths to which a woman might go for the love of a man. Abigail Deser directs the West Coast premiere of “Dido of Idaho” by Abby Rosebrock, running July 20 through Aug. 26 at Atwater Village Theatre.

Alana Dietze — Echo productions of “Everything Will Be Different,” for which she was Ovation-nominated — brings us Nora, a lovelorn baroque musicologist with a drinking problem who is head-over-heels for an English professor, Michael, played by Joby Earle. Unfortunately, this particular good man has already been claimed by Crystal, a former Miss Idaho with a penchant for home manicures.

When the extramarital hijinks go brutally awry, Nora flees to the Rocky Mountains to seek comfort from her estranged mother, Julie, and Julie’s new partner, Ethel. In her desperate bid to find compassion, Nora risks losing the only family she’s ever had — maybe forever.

“This play is wonderfully raw, original, authentic and funny,” said Deser. “Nora faces her own potential annihilation because she only knows how to exist in the reflection of the male gaze. Self-love is the only beacon that might help her find her way back to safe shores.”

The title of the play is derived from the ancient Greek tale of Dido and Aeneas. In the course of his travels, Aeneas stops in Carthage, where he has a passionate love affair with the recently widowed Queen Dido. As soon as he learns that the gods have assigned him another, more glorious fate, Aeneas abandons Dido, whereupon she kills herself in rage and despair.

“I wanted to write about a woman who feels hopeless of ever being loved, and to imagine a way out of that for her,” Rosebrock explained in an interview. “The only way to make that kind of play bearable for me or for anyone experiencing it is to make it as funny and exciting as possible. My hope has been that crafting a lot of physical comedy, wordplay and rapid-fire punchlines, all situated in something like realism, makes the story something people can really inhale, even as it challenges them.”

“Dido of Idaho” opens on Saturday with performances continuing on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 4 p.m. and Mondays at 8 p.m. through Aug. 26. Preview performances are set for Thursday, July 18, and Friday, July 19, each at 8 p.m. Tickets are $34 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. All Monday night performances, as well as previews, are pay–what–you–want.

Atwater Village Theatre is located at 3269 Casitas Ave. in Los Angeles.

For more information and to purchase tickets, call 747-350-8066 or go to www.EchoTheaterCompany.com.