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.