Photo Credit: Patti Meyer
Written & Performed by Geoff Hoyle
Developed & Directed with David Ford
Extended May 3 – 24 | Wed 8pm; Sat 3pm
Berkeley
The Marsh is thrilled to announce the return of Geoff Hoyle’s hit solo show, GEEZER.
From a hysterical riff on life in a nursing home to The Venerable Bede’s meditations on the meaning of life, from delightful reminisces of his youth in England and young manhood in America to ruminations on ageing and mortality, Hoyle brings his irrepressible sense of comedy and trademark physicality, as well as a certain elegiac wistfulness, to this tour-de-force performance about what it is like to grow old.
Artist Biography
Geoff Hoyle trained with Marcel Marceau’s teacher, Etienne Decroux, in Paris, developing his unique physical bravura comic style, a combination of the court jester, vaudeville and English music hall. He made his mark in the Bay Area as the Pickle Family Circus’ beloved clown, Mr. Sniff. Later, he created the critically acclaimed “Feast of Fools,” featuring masked Commedia Dell’Arte characters including the libidinous and elderly Pantalone (Hoyle claims he will no longer need to use a mask for this one,) Il Dottore and the pratt-falling Arleccino. It is a depiction of Everyman striving for dignity in the face of a multitude of struggles, big and small, that is not unlike Hoyle’s own search for meaning in GEEZER. His award-winning shows “The Convict’s Return” (about taking “Feast of Fools” to Broadway and its mixed reception there,) “(Geni(us)” and “The First Hundred Years” (an improbable history of comedy) have been seen in San Francisco, Paris, London, Berlin, Taiwan, New York, England and the former Soviet Union.
Press & Media
“Hoyle solo show laughs years away” –Robert Hurwitt, SF Chronicle
“…The fusing of of mesmeric physical performance, searching autobiography, subtle humor, raucous hilarity, and tender regard…”–Robert Avila, SFBG
GEEZER is a smash hit. –Jon Carrol, SF
“…perhaps the most poignant and personal of the comic’s great canon…”–Bay Area News Group