Play delayed in deference to Eagles fans

Many football fans in the Philadelphia region know exactly where they will be at 4:30 Sunday when the Eagles begin their much-anticipated post-season run.

But some of them are more than just Eagles fans. There’s an experimental theater company in town that’s keeping one eye on the gridiron.

The troupe’s latest venture is a little-known play called “East” written in the 1970s. It’s about a group of punks and criminals on London’s East Side. They describe their violent lives in a combination Shakespearean rhythm and cockney slang.

Here are a few lines: “I flashed out my razor, and it danced around his face like fireflies, reflecting in the cold streak the little yellow gaslight. Until the sheen of red that did splat from out his pipes.”

“Harsh” and “uncomfortable” is how Lane Savadove describes it. He’s the artistic director of EgoPo Theater in Philadelphia, specializing in the theater of cruelty. Savadove pushed back the scheduled time for the performance of “East” so that it wouldn’t compete with the first Eagles playoff game.

“Philadelphia is very special that way. You can easily be someone who loves to go see the Eagles, and then you want to see high art,” says Salvadore. “Those things can easily live inside the same person without being a horrible contradiction of class or educational background.”

Savadove, an Eagles season ticket holder, will be at the stadium Sunday night. He says he will quickly hop on a train to rush to L’Etage Theater at 6th and Bainbridge streets for the 8:30 curtain.