A visit to The Ochre House is like no other. Everything seems fairly innocuous until the lights go down and you are plunged into the realm of dreams, hilarity, nefariousness and the fanciful. Matthew Posey’s Elwood is set outside the boundaries of urban civilization. Elwood lives in a rustic cabin where he cares for the baby he conceived with Cordelia, who took a powder some time ago. Cordelia’s parents, Ansel and Sarah Barber, appear on Elwood’s front porch, seeking Cordelia and concerned for the welfare of their grandson. By all accounts, he is quite a rapacious, homely baby, but Elwood loves him fiercely. Sisters Florida and Tennessee, Harley Tulips and several others, are all up in Elwood’s business about this heard, but rarely seen, infant. It’s implied that Elwood made some deal with diabolical individuals that put his son at risk, but the particulars are vague.
As he has done in previous shows, Posey is pretty cagey when it comes to tone. There is comic respite to be sure, but often demonstration doesn’t quite match content. Like if you were were paying your respects at a funeral, and placed a watermelon on the departed. Posey punctures a solemn moment with humor, but the actors never betray the incongruity. Could it be the characters don’t take matters as seriously as they believe they do? Can they not distinguish between the crucial and the ridiculous? Posey’s ability to beguile with enigma and confounded expectations, to weave the absurd seamlessly into the melancholy and mundane, is meticulous and impeccable. He seems to delight in confiscating any compass we might bring with us to the theater.
Elwood explores the considerable burden of bringing children into the world. Cordelia’s parents readily admit their failure to raise her conscientiously. Elwood bewails profound regret for not protecting his son. It’s not easy to grasp if the parents in Elwood feel they lacked the character to guide their children, or found the responsibility overwhelming. Perhaps half the trick in coming through for our kids is being emotionally present, but in Elwood’s famished cosmos, that possibility seems remote. For all the contrition and despondency, their seems to be a dangerous undercurrent of apathy and resignation.
Ochre House’s Elwood is a thoroughly absorbing, somber, compelling and humorous drama. Posey and his brilliant cast, et al, create a strange, surprising and richly entertaining reflection on a timeless and tragic problem. The chasm between what children need to thrive in this sketchy life, and what they get.
Ochre House presents Elwood, playing October 27th-November 17th, 2018. 823 Exposition Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75226. 214-826-6273. www.ochrehousetheater.org. web.ovationtix.com.