Month: January 2019

John is the president of a successful business firm, and Ellen is his mistress. They have a standing rendezvous every Wednesday and John leaves the next morning, after breakfast. Ellen lives in a penthouse that John fobs off as accommodations for visiting clients, so he can get the tax write-off. Cass and his brother have recently sold their business (manufacturing drawer pulls) to John’s, and realize, too late, they’ve been taken to the proverbial “cleaners.” Cass makes a special trip to New York City to confront John for his chicanery. A new receptionist at John’s firm has sends Cass to the penthouse by mistake, and later, John’s wife, Dorothy. Comedic chaos ensues.

At the outset, we see John finishing breakfast while Ellen pours his coffee in a frilly, translucent nightgown. When she reveals that today’s her birthday, he offers to spend the day, only to discover that scheduling blunders demand he must show up for work. Ellen is in tears when Cass knocks on the door, ready to read John the riot act. Of course, John’s not there, and Cass pretends to be John’s friend, needing a place to spend the night. The absent-minded secretary triggers awkward situations, and unresolved conflicts. When Dorothy shows up and finds Cass and Ellen arguing, she assumes they’re newlyweds, and insists they join John and she, for a night on the town.

Like other brisk comedies of the 60’s (Cactus Flower, Butterflies are Free, Barefoot in the Park) Muriel Resnik’s Any Wednesday finds humor in the foibles of romance, sex and disappointment. The difference is that Resnik doesn’t need to salve our wounds with an upbeat ending. It’s not depressing, but it’s not carefree. John is intelligent and savvy, but only wants what he can’t have. Ellen appreciates her situation, but never really reflects on what it costs her. Cass still believes that strength of character is rewarded. Dorothy seems to be the only one who embraces ugly truths with calm and sophistication. It isn’t just her seniority, she’s far better adjusted than her philandering husband, and is loathe to exploit others.

Any Wednesday is quite entertaining: sharp, emotionally evolved, surprising, ironic and strategically built. I’m not sure comedy is its most salient quality, but the narrative is touching and gripping. We care about Dorothy, Cass and Ellen and find ourselves involved in their lives. We witness their moments of anger and despondency. Joy and regret. Resnik sets hazards and epiphanies for them (and us) encouraging vicarious fulfillment. Resnik has the gift of making her story funny, canny, engaging and smart enough keep us on our toes. Any Wednesday may all turn on the new girl who still hasn’t figured out the switchboard, but even today, is that such a reach?

Rover DramaWerks presents: Any Wednesday playing January 10th-26th, 2019. 221 W Parker Rd, Suite 580, Plano, Texas 75023. 972-849-0358. www.roverdramawerks.com

Equus took the theatre world by storm in 1973, forever changing the paradigm of the possible. With it’s minimal set, primitive horse masks, characters bearing witness like a chorus, primal rhythms of worship and sacramental nudity, it was both shocking and cunning. Playwright Peter Shaffer built upon the premise (disturbed teenage boy blinds six horses) to consider the link between passivity and defiance, the Christian model of maleness, the intensity of pagan adulation, sexuality and manhood, and homoeroticism. Not that it’s all neatly lined up for cogitation. Elements spill over into each other, sparking combustion both terrifying and glorious. Shaffer captured the overwhelming experience of boy adolescence, with all its raw fear and ecstasy. Staging was neither for the faint of heart nor the reckless. It was difficult to fight the fear that we were dancing along the mouth of a volcano.

Martin Dysart is a child psychologist, practicing in England, where Equus is set. Hesther, Dysart’s friend and a magistrate, begs him to take on a case so atrocious, she fears no other doctor can be objective. After considerable arm-twisting, Dysart succumbs, and begins his investigation of Alan Strang’s attack on the horses, and the pathology behind it. Alan is evasive at first. Angry and snotty and confrontational; unsettling Dysart with intuitive digs at his personal life. Progress is slow and beleaguered by baffling details and back-pedaling. Dysart envies Alan his exhilarating midnight rides on Nugget, i.e., his horsegod: Equus.

Critiquing theatre as long as I have, you develop a strong appreciation for originality, bold vision and taking chances. Conventional staging can be all right, if it’s consistent with theme and content. But when you bring a fresh slant to shows that have entered the canon, this can be cause for excitement. Changing the time and setting of Taming of the Shrew, for example, makes it easier for the audience to identify. Director Adam Adolfo has taken brave risks in Lakeside Community Theatre’s current production of Equus, breaking away from the tropes of other productions. Adolfo digs deep, as if wrapping himself in subtext, bringing it to the surface. Adolfo’s vision is unique (and certainly subversive) pulling us into a nether realm of pain and dominance. All the actors are double cast as horses. The audience is, in effect, ushered into a stable, with redolent odors of straw, wood and leather. There is a persistent chorus of nickering, neighing, snorting and stomping hooves.

LCT’s Equus is powerful, life changing theatre. Adolfo cooks up Shaffer’s tumultuous narrative of Dysart and Strang’s ordeal, keeping it raw yet articulate. Equus may arguably be one of the most demanding scripts you could choose. It needs meticulous focus, restrained yet seething rage, and a pervasive sense of elemental forces beyond our grasp. The cast (Ellen Bell, Dale Moon, Jake Montgomery, Autumn McNamara, Nolan Spinks Cameron Fox, Jacob Hopson, Alex Rain, Andrew Derasaugh, Isabell Moon) is stalwart, provocative and utterly engaged. Especially noteworthy are

Dale Moon (Dysart) and Jake Montgomery (Strang). Moon brings a passionate despondence to the tormented psychiatrist, desperately trying to defuse Alan’s illness. Montgomery is electrifying and astonishing as the isolated and broken young man, aching to resolve the seachanges that come with manhood. Sometimes an actor trusts his intuition, taking us to that rare moment of grace and gestalt. Mr. Montgomery invite us into this startling turn, and it’s unforgettable.

Lakeside Community Theatre presents Equus, playing January 18th-February 2^nd, 2019. 6303 Main Street, The Colony, Texas 75056. (214) 801-4869. www.lctthecolony.com

It’s the 1880’s and the practical use of electricity has emerged as an epiphany, giving way to interior lighting and other conveniences. Dr. Givings treats patients (mostly women) for hysteria. Dr. Givings’ wife, Katherine, has a kind of sweet, breathless quality about her. If the doctor is cerebral and detached, Katherine is impulsive and effusive. What’s being diagnosed as “hysteria”, with its listlessness, malaise and lack of motivation, might also be construed as sexual frustration. The device Givings uses to treat their condition seems like a precursor to the vibrator. He applies it to their genitals, under a sheet, to preserve their modesty. Afterwards they are refreshed, vibrant, consumed by creative impulses.

In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) is Sarah Ruhl’s sex farce, eventually revealed as a melancholy reflection on the broken connection between men and women. At the outset, the various characters (two patients, two husbands, two wives, a painter, a nurse, a maid) seem fairly well-adjusted. As Katherine Givings surmises the procedure being performed on her husband’s patients, her ache for a more fulfilling marriage is elicited. Katherine’s joie de vivre finds no encouragement from her husband, who, while caring, is blind to his wife’s sybaritic spirit. As we learn more about the others: the details of their identities, their disappointments, their misery, we see (as Katherine does) that none of them are experiencing the abstract ideal of romance. In the hands of a lesser playwright, this revelation might have been reduced to cliché, but Ruhl imbues the narrative with poignancy and a poetry of longing.

As for the central metaphor, the left-brained husbands fail to grasp their clumsy attempts at using sex as the language of intimacy. (Only Leo, the artist, seems to understand the potential life presents for the rich and ecstatic.) The gizmo Dr. Givings uses to stimulate his patients, unfortunately, lacks the human touch. While often effective, it forfeits the grace of mammalian contact for mechanical response. Comparing electric light (with its alternating or direct current) to the elusive, flickering flame of a candle, Ruhl illustrates the folly of formulaic solutions to human quandary. Perhaps if the spouses were more empathetic? But that being said, In the Next Room, with parallel failures and thwarted intentions, carefully avoids assigning blame.

Director Marianne Galloway has assembled a valiant and fragile gathering of actors (Jennifer Kuenzer –David Meglino -Robert San Juan -Mindy Neuendorff -Sky Williams – Evan Michael Woods – Katlin Moon-Jones) for this profoundly touching and demanding piece. It’s difficult to know the appropriate response to a satire that morphs into an elaborate fable on the nature of our lives, the power of sympathy, and the destiny of coupling. We’re encouraged to chuckle at patriarchal deference to the male ego, and patronizing idolatry that leads men to treat women as girls. The enigma of goddesses replaces the rapture of imbuing pleasure. The cast, crew, et al, of In the Next Room have taken on this challenge with savvy, radiance and grace.

Imprint Theatreworks presents: In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) playing January 18th-26th, 2019. Bath House Cultural Center, 521 East Lawther Drive, Dallas, Texas 75218. 214-670-8749. imprinttheatreworks.org.