Down for the Count: One Act Women’s Theatre Festival
For a few years now, Bishop Arts in Oak Cliff has presented a Festival of One Acts by Women playwrights. This year’s production (directed by Phyllis Cicero) was marked by versatility, audacity and originality. They didn’t necessarily raise issues of marginalizing, discrimination or diminishment, and in some cases asked more the audience than we find in the mainstream. And perhaps something more of the intriguing and fanciful.
DIY (Katherine Craft) Two teenage girls who are best friends are fighting, Elena exposed that Rory cheated on a test. Rory has been gossiping about Elena. It takes awhile before the two strip away the layers of deception (some of the lies are extreme) to reveal the raw truth of their predicaments. In the end, their caring attachment wins out over anger. Craft shows the strength of their love without a lot of the traditional demonstrative affection.
Interdisciplinary (Ife Olujobi) An African American performance artist sits at a chair, applying makeup, wearing brassiere and panties. It’s discreetly made clear her menstrual cycle has started. Two professors who are evaluating the piece, begin their evaluation with erudition, but gradually lapse into predictable, alpha-male squabbling. Two lady friends who have met for lunch, also notice the “exhibit.” One bursts into laughter, while the other is more pensive and respectful. Olujobi explores racial division and the objectification and disparagement of women in American culture. By tracking the reactions of seemingly intelligent adults, she evinces our inability to acknowledge women as normal, whole, accessible human beings.
Jo Chaco Tum (Maryam O. Baig) Beginning with a bucolic grandfather telling a folk story to his tomboy granddaughter, this play morphs into narratives examining gender archetypes, polarization and blending of the male and female, sexuality and the pomegranate as metaphor. There are also hints of Oedipus Rex. Baig has a strong sense of the elusive and playful here. The bizarre and contemporary. She mixes colloquialism with humor and camp. This is the kind of piece that is better interpreted intuitively than intellectually, but between the lines lurks a kind of subversive wisdom.
I Get The Blues, Sometimes I Do (Tsehaye Geralyn Hebert) Hebert follows the longtime friendship of Stephanie (Black) and Colleen (White) as they struggle with issues like dating, divorce, career, heartache, while sipping wine and listening to Stephanie’s Blues records. They disagree without incident, as close friends often do; until Stephanie refuses to lend Colleen her personal experiences of the genre, for a storytelling gig Colleen has landed. Seems Colleen doesn’t understand that each person’s individual connection to the Blues is the point. Hebert has found a clever way of showing that equal doesn’t mean identical.
The Sound (Linda Jones) Delivered by an African American Woman, The Sound is a prolonged monologue comparing the sound of her mother ironing her hair flat as a child, with the sound of cocaine cooking in a Crack House. The tone is dark and melancholy. Chilling. She’s very tough, but seems to long for the warmth of her lost childhood, and resigned to present despair. Jones has created a vivid portrait of a woman who feels she cannot fit into the world of respectability, but hates the trap she’s fallen into.
Covenant (Kristiana Rae Colon) We are dropped into (what might be) a Wiccan Ritual, where four brightly dressed women dance, chant, cast spells, and forge a sacrament of shared womanhood. They are focused and invested, and it’s quite alluring and intoxicating. Towards the end, Colon introduces Roger, a friend whose dedication and passion leave much to be desired. These women understand the true meaning of devotion, and more than that, they don’t need men to thrive and evolve.
Bishop Arts Theatre Center presents: Down for the Count: One Act Women’s Theatre Festival
playing March 29th-April 15th, 2018. 215 South Tyler Street, Dallas, Texas 75208. 214-948-0716. BishopArtsTheatre.org