BINGHAMTON, NY (WIVT/WBGH) – A play about the absurdity of bureaucracy is being performed this weekend at the Phelps Mansion Museum in Binghamton.

Southern Tier Actors Read, or STAR, is producing a staged reading of “The Memorandum” by Czech playwright and one time Czech president Vaclav Havel.

In it, the main characters goes through a Byzantine maze trying to translate a memo written in a new, official and complicated language.

Artistic Director J Vaclav Michalec says that although the play was set in Communist Czechoslovakia, it applies to many forms of bureaucracy.

“This is a theme that runs throughout absurdist playwriting. We, as humans, are stuck in this human condition in which we go round and round and round and end up in the same place again, accomplishing very, very little, if anything,” he said.

Michalec says the 11 person cast includes a number of veterans of local community theater as well as 3 Binghamton High School students, including my daughter Olivia.

Showtimes are tonight and tomorrow at 7 p.m. with a Sunday matinee at 2.

Tickets are 15 dollars, 5 for students and are available at the door.