Month: February 2019

From the beginning, Doom McCoy was a figure of legend and enigma. Born in the midst of a cyclone (or a tornado?) he was left an orphan after the catastrophe took his parents’ lives. Just like Harry Potter, Doom has no knowledge of his mom and dad, but a reputation that proceeds him. He’s very generous hearted, if a bit slow. He has a sweet (but not too) wife and a rambunctious boy and a girl. We accompany Doom on his odyssey, whether he’s headed to town, or the saloon, or across a burning desert, or fleeing the grasp of the treacherous. Doom has special powers he has yet to comprehend, so he finds himself in situations that are dangerous, inexplicable, perplexing. Explainable only by the evolved and oracular. He crosses paths with a Gambler, Satan, a Priest, a Medicine Man, an Evil Tycoon.

Director/Playwright Justin Locklear has crafted this metaphysical, satirical, comedic horse opera, with oodles of tropes, borrowing from Spaghetti Westerns, heroic journeys, Zane Grey, John Ford, Sergio Leone and Beck. Doom McCoy is equal parts homage and spoof, honoring the spirit of Cowboy narrative while taking pleasure in wry, understated sport. No one is better at concocting special effects on a dime that those prestidigitators at The Ochre House. Moving backgrounds, rough and tumble horse chases, slow-motion duels and (what I can only explain as) parallel universe incidents seen before our eyes and wrought “cunningly in small.” In Locklear’s script, characters are just as likely to make deconstructive observations (regarding narrative structure or thematic impact) as dialogue that advances the plot. And kudos all over the place, for the chutzpah Locklear took, to make female arch-villains so convivial and poisonous. You might ask, “Is this a step forward, or a step back?” I like to think it’s both.

It’s rare to find theatre where the pleasure and joy a company takes in creating a sublime, memorable experience is so tangible. So formidable. The Ochre House thrives on embracing the strange, the giddy, the ridiculous, the defiantly poetic. Doom McCoy and the Death Nugget isn’t as intense as some of their shows, but needless to say, the best comedy never nudges the audience in the ribs. It’s thoroughly submerged in its own cosmos, with all its jeery-rigged, hallucinatory, subversive, down-the-rabbit-hole glory, and there’s nothing that compares. So much comedy today is hamfisted, clueless and confuses the inane with the absurd. Ochre House understands that a phenomenal play like Waiting for Godot works, not just from gags and shenanigans, but because it resonates with our souls.

The Ochre House presents Doom McCoy and the Death Nugget, playing February 9th-March 2^nd, 2019. 825 Exposition Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75226. 214-826-6273. OchreHouseTheater.org

Entering the performance space, we see the stage has the cozy look of a den: wood paneling, piano, chairs, shelves neatly packed with rows of jars, each containing sheet music and a “brain”. There are four actors: two men and two women. No costume changes, double, triple, quadruple casting. As scenes are played, continuities emerge. Though there are linear plots, they don’t proceed in linear time. Hopscotch. One character is a scientist recovering from a stroke. Another his wife. There’s a neurologist trying to bounce back from a painful divorce. A pathologist who’s studying Einstein’s brain. One character experiments with a lesbian attachment, another investigates Einstein’s progeny.

Written by Nick Payne, Incognito considers recollection, brilliance, reason, scruples, loss, excruciation, the sublime. Initially, the narratives seem to move from the comic, to the ridiculous, to the dark. Sometimes the sublime to the insane. Following variations on a theme, stories cross, converge, crash, run parallel, start over. A devoted wife tries to salvage a glorious marriage, that’s barely started. She must endure incremental attempts to restore her husband’s memory. He doesn’t recognize her, then he does. The pathologist studies Einstein’s brain by dissection, distributing slices into countless jars. A therapist seeking the solace of intimacy, gets drunk to extinguish painful memories, so she can move on.

Payne fuses episodes and elements, keeping details distinct, creating a montage. Memory is a grace, preserving tender, transformative moments, but tormenting us with the traumatic, as well. It’s as if Payne seeks shatter any idealized notions of the brain and mind. Those who dwell the realms of genius might not be spiritually evolved. Saints not intellectual. Does past context enhance a relationship? If we could erase horrible incidents from the mind, should we? In a fugue state, what we say and do never enters conscious memory. In Incognito the forgotten becomes a fugue. Something phenomenal that affects us, but lies just beyond our reach. Payne finds delicacy, frailty, in the midst of chaos that for an instant, gives us a flash of clarity.

Under the sagacious, meticulous guidance of director Alex Organ, the cast (Drew Wall, Natalie Hebert, Thomas Ward, Shannon McGrann) is sublime: focused, agile, thoroughly engaged. Wall brings spontaneity and charisma, Hebert a nuanced, quirky grace. Thomas Ward has an ursine authenticity that is both amusing and poignant and McGrann, intuitive impulses that are truly phenomenal. She has a subtle pathos that will overwhelm you.

Second Thought Theatre presents Incognito, playing January 30th-February 11^th, 2019. Bryant Hall, Kalita Humphreys Campus. 3400 Blackburn St., Dallas, Texas 75219. (866) 811-4111. secondthoughttheatre.com

In 2006, Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik added rock, folk, pop music and lyrics to Frank Wedekind’s Spring’s Awakening. It swept the Tony’s. The most salient irony in a story fraught with ironies, is the stunning lack of progress mankind has made since the original play was staged in the 1800’s. Teenagers are still overwhelmed by the onslaught of hormones that come with adolescence. When they seek guidance from parents, teachers, ministers they are still admonished, ignored, denounced. Left adrift in a tumultuous ocean they are ill-equipped to navigate. Instead of getting crucial, practical information, they are failed by authority figures too cowardly to sort through their own discomfort and unresolved issues.

Spring Awakening tells the story of all young men and women, and Melchior, Moritz and Wendla, in particular. Melchior is the rebellious, intellectual atheist, and like Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, he is summarily punished for it. He helps out his poor buddy Moritz, who’s so frantic for answers and dizzy with libido, he can’t keep up his grades. The handmade, illustrated book that Melchior authors, creates a stir, as it presents the facts in a forthright, secular context. Wendla, also kept in the dark, seeks respite from Melchior. Naive in such matters, she insists that Melchior thrash her, with disastrous results. Sexuality without a compass can lead to inappropriate impulses, neither of which Wendla and Melchior can process or understand. When they finally consummate in an act of tender lovemaking, Wendla has no idea she’s risking pregnancy.

From the very first time I saw Spring Awakening, I was shocked and jazzed and completely onboard with its angry, unapologetic expression of sadness and disgust for adults that will do anything, anything, anything but level with them. The arrogance, superficiality, and vindictiveness of the grown-ups leaves ruin and tragedy all around. Spring Awakening looks at sexuality without flinching, so it explores disturbing content like incest, abuse, rape, abortion, desperation, abandonment, all running rampant because those in charge believe that shaming, bullying, disingenuousness is the answer to any situation they’d prefer to avoid.

The glorious joy of Spring Awakening is it’s utter lack of patience for the hypocrisy, persecution and degradation the teenage characters are subjected to, for the sake of sparing lame parents. The kids give way to raw, volcanic anger, contempt, despair. They leap in the air, they shout and dance and celebrate their subversive defiance. As much a rebuke of pretentiousness and sanctimoniousness as it is a paean to undiluted emotion, Spring Awakening takes us to the realms of transcendent, exquisite transgression: kicking, stomping, pushing back. Filling your lungs and yelling with everything you’ve got. The realm where sentient, fully functioning souls step up and crush the insects of ignorance, pettiness and fascism.

Uptown Players presents Spring Awakening, playing January 31^st -February 3^rd, 2019. Moody Performance Hall. 2520 Flora Street, Dallas, Texas 75201. 214-219-2718. uptownplayers.org

Set in Reading, Pennsylvania during Bush Jr’s term in office, Lynn Nottage’s Sweat tells the story of nine characters: Tracey, Stan, Jessie, Cynthia, Evan, Jason, Brucie, Chris and Oscar. Their lives depend on the factory that provides most of the town’s employment. When Bush’s notorious and flagrant manipulation of the economy went sideways, as we might expect, the working class and indigent are hardest hit. Scrambling to maintain profits, the factory cheats loyal employees by forcing them to renegotiate fair contracts, for less money. When they strike, the factory hires new labor for cheaper wages. People struggling for a better life make circumstances even worse for workers with seniority.

Most of the activity in Sweat happens in Stan’s bar, a regular watering hole for Cynthia, Jessie and Tracey, close friends who have worked the factory “floor” since they were teens. Chris and Jason, Cynthia and Tracey’s sons, are best friends, and spend a lot of time hanging out, when not working at the factory. Oscar helps Stan at the bar, busing tables, cleaning bathrooms, and so forth. Brucie is a drunken lout, and Cynthia’s husband. He’s not abusive, but irresponsible and given to benders. He will disappear for days.

Tracey, especially, has a short fuse. She tends to badger others and encourage escalation. As more and more of the folks living in Reading drop below the poverty level, and desperation rises, friendships deteriorate. When Cynthia, a hard-working, smart, African American woman is promoted, it sparks resentment from Jessie and Tracey, who figure she benefited from political correctness. When Cynthia’s torn between job dedication and loyalty to her friends, animosity grows. Prolonged, excruciating frustration erupts in rage and brawling.

Sweat is set by a special clock. Nottage shows us details, after and before a particular, devastating incident, and events leading up to it. We see Jessie, Cynthia and Tracey when they still cared for each other, unabashedly. As misery gradually takes over, we see the drunkenness, the anger, the sense of hopelessness, fueling catastrophe. Sweat makes it pretty evident that when Bush started gaming the economy to the advantage of the wealthy, the ripple effect on the 1% was no concern of his. Not that Sweat is an indictment. Rather it grieves the sense of solidarity and charity that we Americans forfeited as greedy, privileged class politicians looted and pillaged our resources. At a loss for some way to pull together, the struggling families of Reading have been condemned to chaos and despair.

The Dallas Theater Center presents Sweat, playing January 18th-February 10^th, 2019. Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Boulevard (Corner of Blackburn and Turtle Creek) Dallas, Texas 75219. 214-880-0202. www.DallasTheaterCenter.org