Month: July 2018

Tick (drag name Mitzi) gets a phone call from his ex-wife. They have clearly parted on good terms and she tells him it’s time he met his young son, Benji. It catches Tick off guard as all this was (as they say) another lifetime ago. He must cross the outback to make this happen, but fortuitously, he could also take advantage of a lucrative entertainment gig at a casino. He enlists his partners in crime, Adam (Felicia) and Bernadette. Adam is also a drag artist and deliciously over-the-top queen. Bernadette is a post-op transgender, with much soul, and a bit of despondency. So they rent an old bus they dub “Priscilla,” and off these intrepid three go.

Priscilla: Queen of the Desert (as you might guess from its fanciful name) is a wonderfully excessive fantasia, a giddy, intoxicating odyssey through numerous situations, contrasting the elemental, bucolic, robustly virile milieu with outrageously jubilant celebration of campy female behavior and queer transgression. Tick, Adam and Bernadette all have their baggage, naturally and much time is spent trying to reconcile that with intolerance, in-fighting and a bizarre roadtrip through the desert in a broken down bus. The musical numbers are eclectic, spirited, elaborate and surprisingly effective. From the silly to the torchy to the Busbyesque, they punch us up and seduce us with jazzy merriment. Suzi Cranford and Jessie Chavez manage the costumes, and let me tell you, you haven’t lived till you’ve seen these marvelous, extraterrestial, gushy-gorgeous frocks that put the “F” in flamboyant and the “Q” in queeny. “Dazzling” doesn’t begin to describe it. “Scintillating” doesn’t do it justice.

Priscilla would seem to be the answer to the virulent hatred, the stubborn resistance to graciousness and kindness that (while certainly not pervasive as it one was) still emerges to persecute us and make our lives miserable. It doesn’t take much for these boys to bust out the finery and bring on the defiance. Sometimes they get knocked tail over tincup, but they have each other to lick their wounds. (Now don’t go there.) Like the rest of us they have their trials and broken places and regrets. To their credit, Stephen “Spud” Murphy and Simon Phillips (the folks who adapted the film Priscilla to the stage) imbued this jaunty, crooked musical with healing humor and effusive, valiant cheerfulness. It doesn’t feel forced or contrived. It does feel spontaneous and genuine. How do they DO it? It doesn’t matter, just go.

Uptown Players presents Priscilla: Queen of the Desert, playing July 13th-29th, 2018. Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek, Blvd, Dallas, Texas 75219. 214-219-2718. uptownplayers.org

Who might have guessed that the triumphs and trials of Tracy Turnblad, would culminate into such a successful Broadway Musical? Inspired by John Waters’ essay: “The Nicest Kids In Town,” and the subsequent film, Hairspray (The Musical) with its odd mix of sunshiney progressiveness, casual crassness and disingenuous double entendre’ is strangely effective. It feels facile (almost formulaic) yet the alternating doses of optimism and skepticism strike a harmonic balance. It’s like a deadpan comic whose pitch perfect delivery makes outlandish material work. The good guys in Hairspray are certainly not saints, but they know what matters. (Even Mary Tyler Moore sometimes had a hard time being nice to Ted Baxter.) And the bad guys certainly take their turn in the barrel. Figuratively speaking.

Tracy Turnblad is a teenage girl, attending high school in Baltimore, in 1962. She does all the rebellious things bad kids do, ratting her hair, dancing to “negro music,” raising a ruckus when injustice occurs. But, as we all know, bad also means cool. She and her friend, Penny love Corny Collins (think Shindig or American Bandstand) and no one is more surprised when Tracy cinches the audition and gets a spot on the show. She becomes friends with Link Larkin, the steady boyfriend of Amber Van Tussel, the snotty queen bee of Corny Collins (produced by her mother Velma). Amber and Velma make ugly remarks about Tracy’s girth, and of course, Amber’s jealous of Link and Tracy. When Tracy joins the Teen Committee and suggests integration, it’s not met with enthusiasm. But our hero is too determined (naturally) to capitulate.

The key to Hairspray’s success is tone. It’s cheerful and optimistic, but avoids being superficial or candy-ass. If you know John Water’s oeuvre, he directed numerous bargain basement films (Pink Flamingos, Desperate Living, Female Trouble) that nonetheless had a distinct attitude to them. They gleefully flouted taste, sophistication, rudimentary quality and plausibility. Somewhere between the release of Waters’ film: Hairspray and the premiere of the musical, the content shifted. It retained much of his unapologetically creepy, risque humor, while accentuating idealism. This musical is eccentric, off-kilter and funny, but without Waters’s customary hostility. There’s just enough anarchy to entice us, without scaring off the Muggles. Hairspray (The Musical) is chipper, without feeling ridiculous.

Hairspray (The Musical) played July 7th-15th, 2018, through ATTPAC and The Dallas Theater Center at The Winspear Opera House. 2403 Flora Street, Dallas, Texas 75201. 214-880-0202. www.attpac.org

In 1891 Frank Wedekind’s Spring’s Awakening took society by storm with its fearless exploration of teenage sexuality and the misery that ignorance, trepidation, Puritanism, and outright abuse impart. Who among us cannot remember the frustration, confusion, exhilaration, pain and upheaval that comes with the strange grace of adolescence? (Personally, I was a basket case.) Sadness, upon sadness, outrage upon outrage; Wedekind indicts the cultural and systemic paradigm that repeatedly fails young people desperately in need of a compass. Quaint discomfort and Draconian punishment are met with equal contempt.

Easy to see why Spring’s Awakening has had a resurgence, considering how these grotesque dilemmas persist. Ignorance and petty, judgmental moral values continue to prevail over common sense, and honest, practical sharing of information. Recent memory evokes a Surgeon General who had the audacity to suggest mutual masturbation between lovers as a pragmatic alternative to unprotected sex. She was censured and forced to step down by idiots, who were terrified that some useful information could only lead to havoc. Comparisons to Prometheus, Margaret Sanger and Socrates only begin to suggest the reverberations.

Melchior and Moritz are close friends in the demanding world of high school education, where success and a secure, fulfilling future are too often conflated. Manhood has commenced with a vengeance and Moritz is overwhelmed by sensations and imperatives too intense to manage. Wendla is experiencing her own ordeals, profoundly bewildered by a life devoid of palpable affection and feeling in general. The other kids are struggling with additional problems, punitive abuse, molestation, dozens of emotions too dangerous to discuss with the gatekeepers of knowledge. Attempting to help his buddy, Melchior writes something of an instruction book for Moritz, with illustrations. The book gets passed around, which will mean trouble in the end. Wendla and Melchior begin experimenting, only to expose wrenching personal issues they didn’t know existed. Tangled and terrifying.

Wedekind demonstrates the triumph of the ridiculous over imperative need. Children, essentially, aching for guidance and comfort are meet with stoic indifference. The three protagonists: Wendla, Moritz and Melchior come to excruciation, all which could have been avoided if those they loved, trusted and relied upon had merely come through. Wedekind is quite ambitious as he attempts to weave a contextual universe, bringing in considerations of death, solipsism, social politics, responsibility, a world without compassion, solace, introspection or reflection. The anger and despondency expressed by the young are implacable and heartbreaking.

Rock the Cosmos. It’s no surprise that Outcry Theatre’s production of Spring’s Awakening brings Wedekind’s narrative of teenage chaos with all its ferocious, twisted, and electrifying epiphany to the stage. This feverish, focused, kinetic cast combines director Becca Johnson-Spinos’ melancholy choreography, woundedness and blind rage to reveal the pervasive stain of humanity, and how disappointing parents can be. It’s a bit to process in one sitting, but how often can you experience this astonishing, unsettling, disconsolate journey that will stand your hair on end? Get drenched in this perfect storm. Theatre at its best.

Outcry Theatre’s Spring’s Awakening plays July 6, 2018 – July 15, 2018. Addison Theatre Centre, Studio Theatre, 15650 Addison Road, Addison, TX 75001. 972-836-7206. www.outcrytheatre.com

Once a year Audacity Theatre Lab hosts the Dallas Solo Fest, offering a variety of prolonged monologues and/or performance art. We don’t know where these narratives will take us, but they never seem to lack for intelligence, wit, authenticity and invention. This time around I was able to see Cody Clark’s A Different Way of Thinking, Chris Davis’ Drunk Lion, John S. Davies’ Oh, Jesus! And John Michael’s Meatball Seance. From Audacity’s Manifesto: “Throughout the year, Audacity Theatre Lab hosts Solo Salons for regional performers to workshop works-in-progress and to foster a growing solo performance community in the North Texas Area.”

Cody Clark’s A Different Way of Thinking seeks to convey his worldview, through the lens of his place along the autism spectrum, and his talent for magic tricks. He might change the color of scarves to illustrate his perception is different from others. Mr. Clark is quite convivial, and true to other practitioners of his trade, provides amusing patter, along with sleight-of-hand, card tricks, rope tricks and personal anecdotes. He engages us with his life story: triumphs, disappointments, romance, all the while evincing with the illusionist’s craft, and an ongoing stream of gags. Mr. Clark’s approach is fresh and charismatic. He deepens our understanding of autism, without manipulation or apology.

Chris Davis’ Drunk Lion is jazzy, funny, clever and awash in frantic energy, metaphor and multiple meanings. The narrator: Chris Davis, gets drunk with a Mexican Lion, who calls him “Gringo,” and sobs over a woman who broke his heart. He works in memory, various tropes of machismo, theology and the fanciful. His Spanish sounds fluent and he has a gift for involving us in his absurd, intense universe. We consider eternal questions like: What is the Juanita Apocalypse? Is a hole really just a hole? Who is Pedro? Davis ponders a prolonged, entertaining, intriguing series of events that explore deeper questions without bogging down or being obvious. It’s as if he’s applying haiku mentality to hilarity.

John S. Davies’ Oh, Jesus! casts Jesus the Savior of Mankind as stand up-comic: “Wow! It bites to be me, cause I can get the best table at a restaurant, but how would that look?” (my own joke) Davies uses this paradigm as a method for exploring the practical demands of believing in a Supreme Being. He denounces hypocrisy, gladly acknowledges other Messiahs, such as The Buddah, Mohammad, and pauses from time to time to argue with His “Dad.” Davies has great stamina and panache, and his monologue is certainly peppered with gobs of humor. Much of the comic spark (undeniably) comes from the outrageous, but you can only push that wagon so far. Davies’ reflects on the more troubling demands of relying on God in a life not especially kind to humanity. Oh, Jesus! aims high, but requires a careful balance of black humor, introspection and hoke, that it may not have found quite yet.

John Michael’s Meatball Seance features Michael’s demonstration of his mother’s recipe for meatballs. At the same time (as if concocting a potion) he uses the occasion to summon his beloved, deceased mother. Michael’s strategy here is to unwrap the bicycle, then play with the box. Meatball Seance hangs at the periphery, preferring to focus on scaffolding rather than results. One of Michael’s strengths is creating a Utopia in which queer identity is embraced and celebrated. Who better to summon than his mama, who had no problem with his orientation? In the course of this odyssey, he enlists a lot of audience participation: someone to chop, someone to cook, someone to speak for mom. When we are asked to countenance his quest for that one special boyfriend, we do so without blinking. A lot of Meatball Seance turns on John Michael’s charm (and intuition) but it works nonetheless.

Audacity Theatre Lab’s Dallas Solo Fest 2018 played June 6th-10th, 2018. It starred: Chris Davis, John S. Davies, Cody Clark, John Michael, Jim Loucks and Nkechi Chibueze. It was featured at The Rosewood Center for the Arts, 5938 Skillman Road, Dallas, Texas 75231. 1-214-888-6650. www. DallasSoloFest.com.