Month: October 2019

Chemical Imbalance opens on the tranquil home of Doctor Henry Jekyll, his sweet mother, and attentive sister. Sister’s trying to get Henry engaged, but he’s too busy working in his laboratory and chilling with their cousin. They’re having guests to tea, including the insanely proper Mrs. Throckmortonshire and her twin daughters: Penelope and Calliope. Penelope could put Medusa to shame, and Calliope, gracious and kind (but people keep confusing them). The servants are alarmed to relate that an elusive madman is roaming the streets, looking for trouble and terrorizing the neighborhood.

Jekyll longs to be free of the restraints that conscience, society, and a sense of decency have imposed on him. He longs to breathe the putrid air of unfettered anger, poor impulse control and free-range, indiscriminate coupling. Apparently, he cannot simply choose to brawl, molest and be mean to puppies. He’s concocted a potion to facilitate this seachange. But it lacks that certain oomph. That rugged kick in the tuchas he needs to transform him into the beast that nature intended.

Based on this sketchy premise (courtesy of Robert Louis Stevenson) whiz-bang playwright Lauren Wilson has scripted a splendidly facetious comedy of the highest order. She turns horror film cliche on its head, spoofing melodrama, ridiculing Victorian pretentiousness and propriety. Chemical Imbalance is composed of such chaotic, mind-boggling absurdity, that we gladly surrender to helpless laughter. Wilson has turned the once debonair, charismatic (though diabolical) Mr. Hyde into a drooling, giggling lunatic, and it’s a stroke of brilliance. By adding a secret ingredient to the potion, bedlam overtakes the once civilized, poised Jekyll household. Chemical Imbalance is loopy genius, the gag synapses move so quickly, we can barely keep up, and the actors: remarkable, intuitive and smart.

Rover Dramawerks presents Chemical Imbalance playing October 10^th – 27^th, 2019. 221 West Parker Road, Suite 580, Plano, Texas 75023. 972-849-0358. roverdramawerks.thundertix.com

It’s easy to enjoy a musical like Chicago, or Guys and Dolls or Anything Goes. Even though they deal in criminal behavior, they find a way to make scoundrels likable. Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party (based on Joseph Moncure March’s epic poem) strikes an uneasy balance between glitz and degeneracy, tawdriness and ecstasy. When guests indulge in an orgiastic night of cocaine, drunkenness and indiscriminate sex, we forgive them because the soiree is posh, and everyone loves a good time.

Queenie and Burrs are a couple. The playground has closed down (if you know what I mean) with no explanation. Both are rough around the edges, but skilled at rejoinders and self-deprecation. When Burrs first appears, he bemoans his role as vaudeville clown and good-time guy. As each guest explains their trade: thug, hooker, Lesbian, under-aged girl, producer, it’s clear we’re witnessing a jazz age Sodom and Gomorrah. When the mysterious Mr. Black arrives, Queenie is tantalized. She comes on to him, with no discretion whatsoever, goading Burrs to a fit of temper. Queenie and Burrs launch into a tumultuous fight, and things get ugly quickly.

The music, book, and lyrics (all by Lippa) are cynical and exquisite; expressing the pervasive disappointment and malaise that informs the characters’ lives in vivid, dark detail. Bluesy ballads and angry horns. Isaiah Harris’ choreography is inventive and satisfying. Tamara Ballard’s costumes are working class, fancy dress. Dapper or flashy but perhaps a bit weary.

Director Adam Adolfo’s vision for The Wild Party fits the material. It’s set backstage in a vaudeville house, in Manhattan. It’s 1928. Burrs and Queenie are hard-edged and recalcitrant, too disaffected to fix a stuck relationship. The same apathy and ennui infects the guests, up for a good time, but jaded. Perhaps its just a matter of taste, but it might have been better if the trappings were a bit more dazzling. Something that invites us into the narrative. Adofo’s work (as we might expect) is impeccable. The Wild Party ’s a rowdy, often funny, gripping descent.

Bishop Arts Theatre Center presents: The Wild Party, playing October 10-27^th, 2019. 215 South Tyler, Dallas, Texas 75208. (214) 948-0716. info@bishopartstheatre.org

Usnavi owns a bodega (convenience store) in Washington Heights, a primarily Latino district of Manhattan. He sells coffee, lotto tickets, newspapers, snacks and sodas. It’s summer. His younger teenage cousin, Sonny, helps him. As In the Heights opens, we hear the song of Piragua man, who sells aguas (flavored waters) and snow cones. The women who run the Beauty Salon, Claudia, Usnavi’s Abuela (Grandmother), Nina Rosario and her parents, who own a limousine service, Benny, who works for the Rosarios, Vanessa, Usnavi’s girlfriend, other folks from the neighborhood emerge, join in, harmonizing with the vendor, picking up on the background rhythm to dance. Each has their own story. Nina’s struggling at Stanford, Benny’s in love with Nina, Claudia became Usnavi’s grandma when he was left an orphan, Vanessa needs a home apart from her alcoholic mother.

Conceived and composed by Lin Manuel-Miranda and Quiara Alegria Hudes, In the Heights, has a sublime (almost frantic) energy that’s impossible to resist. The salsa dancing (among other kinds) and rapping, so seamlessly blended with traditional songs, inject the show with vibrancy and exuberance. When you consider the premise (or cold practicality) the narrative might have easily become melodrama or a series of predictable ethnic parodies. But there’s a warmth, a sense of compassion and frankness that earns our trust and respect. Claudia is genuinely caring and charitable but she never comes off as self-righteous. Nina’s mother can be very fierce, but when chaos prevails, it helps that she can take charge. Each character has their charms but also very human flaws, and In the Heights weaves each person’s situation with the others. Each character has their contribution and role to play in this community. Even Graffiti Pete the frustrated muralist and Daniela, the gossipy owner of the Unisex Hair Salon.

From Dahlia Al- Habieli’s congenial scenic design, to Rui Rita’s intimate lighting, there’s a cozy, familial feeling that welcomes us to this gathering of struggling, yet optimistic folks. Manuel-Miranda and Hudes don’t just encourage us to peer through the fourth wall, they invite us to empathize and identify. They bring food to your party, but also ask you into their homes. When a winning lottery ticket is sold, when there’s a power outage, when a neighbor passes on, it creates an extended interpersonal affect. Everyone in the neighborhood directly feels it, and so do we. We aren’t just sympathetic, we’re involved. At the risk of lapsing into political rhetoric, in light of the current upheaval, In the Heights comes bearing much needed grace.

The Dallas Theater Center presents In the Heights, playing September 21st- October 20^th, 2019. Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre. 2400 Flora Street, Dallas, TX 75201. 214-522-8499. www.dallastheatercenter.org

I suppose it was inevitable that in 1992, Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (despite its shameless mix of wickedness and pleasure and sketchy casting and outre turns) would tear into history’s canon of Cinema Classics. Gary Oldman’s androgynous, rapacious, aristocratic blood junky was a joy to behold, and Mr. Coppola (always something of a maverick) it seemed, could do no wrong. Like a boulder dropped into a pond, this magnum opus created waves that would influence numerous depictions of the insidious dark prince that are still felt today. On screen and stage elements of this seminal (tee-hee) film have been imported with gusto and impunity.

Which brings us to Theatre 3’s current incarnation: Dracula. Adapted by Michael Federico and Christie Vela, Dracula is a mashup of gender fracturing, plot distillation, ghoulish humor, and Coppola’s masterpiece. It riffs on Stoker’s familiar “legend,” while rethinking Dracula’s identity. It pays special attention to the more colorful characters, and takes Mina in a completely different direction. It’s fair to say this Dracula examines the role of women, with an eye to social justice.

Jonathan Harker travels to Romania, where he’s a guest at Count Dracula’castle. Jonathan’s an attorney who’s there to get contracts signed, sealing Dracula’s ownership of real estate in London. He falls prey to his host’s “appetite” and subsequently, his exotically dressed brides. Meanwhile Renfield (a patient in a madhouse) has inexplicably developed a predatory taste for blood. Mina (Harker’s fiancee) and Lucy are best friends; Dr. Seward is one of Lucy’s suitors and Renfield’s PCP. When the Count arrives in London he quickly seduces Lucy. When her demise is imminent, Seward implores his mentor, Dr. Van Helsing, to intervene.

You might say women dominate this version of Dracula. This is one *spoiler alert* among many: Dracula is played by the formidable, meticulous Allison Pistorius. While transitive gender depiction needn’t amount to passing, the result is a notably fey male. Lucy (Mina’s best friend) refutes the patriarchal admonition that sexually frank women are unseemly. She’s nearly a nymph, or even a demigoddess of playful eroticism. Dr. Van Helsing is also a woman, so avidly butch that Lucy’s cowboy suitor suffers by comparison. She mockbreeds the poor guy. The cisgender men, God bless them, don’t get much credit. Harker, Renfield, Seward, Lucy’s interchangeable suitors, are effete, squeamish, subjugated, or a combination of those traits.

Federico and Vela’s Dracula has a kind of defiance. The script’s intelligent and subversive. They flaunt the enigmatic sexual identity of their notorious count. But these bold choices don’t really get under our skin. Coppola’s Dracula, for all its outrageous hedonism, believes in its content. I’m not sure how seriously we’re supposed to take Vela and Federico’s slant, but perhaps that’s not the point. I think we can all agree (whatever the permutation) Dracula is rich, sinister candy for grownups. And that’s all we need.

Theatre 3 presents Dracula, playing October 3rd-27th, 2019. 2800 Routh Street Suite 168, Dallas, TX 75201. (214) 871-3300. boxoffice@theatre3dallas.com

You have to begin (it seems to me) with the understanding that Beckett is obsessed with exploring mankind’s relationship to God and subsequently, life. Individual men and women with various versions of the same story. Nothing wrong with that. (God sticks us here in the midst of empty, joyless, torment, then occupies himself with other concerns. If he exists at all.) Beckett may wrap the same prize in a different trappings, but the layers are astonishing. Gogo and Didi eagerly expect the enigmatic, elusive Godot. Winnie and Willie are a married couple who spend their days in ordinary activities (washing, afternoon tea, saying their prayers, reading the paper) as a hill of sand creeps closer and closer towards their necks. Blind and confined to a wheelchair, Hamm keeps his parents, Nagg and Nell, in trashcans in his living room.

Wingspan’s current production of two short one acts: Footfalls and Not I, address the experiences of two different women. Beckett is very conscious of the distinct role of women in the world (perhaps the British patriarchy?) and how expectations can shape their behavior. It’s seemly for women to be diffident. To be charitable and serve. The woman in Footfalls is “May” and the other an unnamed woman whose life story is told in third person by a disembodied mouth. The two shows are presented as a diptych, Autonomous but informing one another. Footfalls is dimly and darkly lit, while Not I happens in total blackness, except for the isolated, oracular mouth. The incidental music chosen by Lowell Sargeant has urgent, frantic, incidental violins with an unnerving, foreboding quality. The experience in its entirely brings a damp, chill feeling of aloneness and despair.

May is a women of indeterminate age, who looks to be in her 40’s. Dressed in a kind of ragged nightgown, of some rough cloth, like burlap. She paces back and forth. Same short path, repeatedly. She has been caring for her invalid mother. All of her adult life, it seems. Her voice is meek and soft. When she offers to help her mother with sponge baths or moistening her lips or prayer, her mother says Yes, but it is too soon. Beckett is so meticulous in tone and diction and using language as a kind of desolate music. Intricacy of sound and meaning and layered entendres. You’ve got to listen carefully, with focus. May describes a woman (perhaps herself) visiting church though there seems to be no comfort there. May is eclipsed by her mother, despite though she’s in another room entirely and the illness that incapacitates her. May bears witness to her own presence, though she’s like a sleight, blue, flame flickering.

The anonymous voice in Not I describes a woman in her 70’s, beginning with her birth a tiny thing and we feel from that moment she’s barely there. Her father disappears almost immediately after the sex that creates her. Her mother abandons her shortly thereafter. She’s an orphan. What follows is a purposeful but somehow ragged, disconnected, spontaneous searching for the words to capture the substance of the heroine’s experience. Stream of sensations stagger. There’s a buzzing in her skull. A kind of dull, yet powerful epiphany arising in her mind. A flower opening slowly but like a bullet expanding. We get a sense of her awareness baffled and muffled through the world (a kind of lightness or coasting) until an introspected change occurs, simmering. Beckett reveals her life in a litany of groping for meaning, in the midst of ennui and void.

By now it must be clear that Susan Sargeant: the director, her dedicated, brave cast: Jennifer Kuenzer and Susan Sargeant and her diligent, capable crew have put the Labors of Hercules to shame. These intrepid, still avant-garde pieces by Beckett are so demanding and outre’. It’s hard to imagine how they’ve pulled this off. Like being caught in a small room with angry bees. This is impeccable, fearless theatre.

Wingspan Theatre Company presents: Two by Beckett: Footfalls and Not I, playing October 3rd-19th, 2019. 521 E Lawther Dr (at North Cliff Drive), Dallas, Texas 75218. (214) 675-6573. wingspan@wingspantheatre.com

Reflecting after the end of Jonathan Norton’s new play, A Love Offering, it’s uncertain whether it’s meant earnestly, or ironically, or both. An elderly man (Mr. Turner) with dementia keeps his deceased wife’s brooch by his bed, where he’s living in rehab. The man’s adult children (Stewart and Josie) accuse an African American nurse (Miss Georgia) of stealing the brooch. After hundreds of years to get it right, we still know there can be no good outcome. And of course, that’s the brilliance of Norton’s play, a simple premise, yet none of the five characters emerge from this without bruises. Certainly not us.

When A Love Offering opens Josie and Stewart are talking to T’wana, Turner’s primary nurse. Her wrist is bandaged because Turner bit her. Stewart gives her a $500.00 gift card as a peace offering, even though she’s been very gracious. Mr. Turner has Alzheimer’s, so the nurses often forgive his racist and obscene epithets, dismissing them as unintentional. Before long we see Josie and Stewart are manipulating T’wana. They need a confederate to entrap Miss Georgia, whom they suspect in the disappearance of their mother’s brooch. They don’t know anything. They deceive T’wana and she finds a way to get information from her friend and mentor. Before A Love Offering reaches its wrenching conclusion, the brother and sister will press their advantage, and their lofty proclamations of altruism will blow away like dead leaves.

From a lesser playwright, A Love Offering might have felt somewhat facile, but Mr. Norton earns every crucial moment. He exposes familiar poisons so effective, so embedded in our culture, that the characters can’t resist using them. But they’re also not immune. They know actual guilt isn’t a currency that’s worth much. What might have come down to mere melodrama becomes thunder in Norton’s (and the performers) hands. Stewart and Josie make you feel embarrassed to be white. Why in 2019, do people of their ilk still wield so much leverage? Please understand, like all the most remarkable plays, A Love Offering doesn’t waste time pointing fingers. It simply reveals the ridiculously simple truth. Lies are all about traction. They may seem to secure what you want, but they always come at a price. When you live in a world where pettiness and cynicism thrive, it’s only a matter of time till we all turn on each other.

Kitchen Dog Theater presents the world premiere of Jonathan Norton’s A Love Offering, playing October 3rd-27th, 2019. 2600 N. Stemmons Fwy, Suite 180, Dallas, Texas 75207. (214) 953-1055.

www.kitchendogtheater.org

Bryan has returned from a five-year hiatus, after leaving without a word of explanation. QZ, his best friend and co-editor of The Few (a newspaper for truckers) was left in the lurch, though it’s unclear if she and Bryan were lovers. QZ’s understandably angry. Bryan left abruptly after their best friend, Jim, died in a collision. Now he just appears, with no desire to explain. The Few, a weekly which comforted the beleagured spirit of lonely, subjugated souls, has turned into a paper that is 90% personal ads, and finally turns a profit. QZ has hired a teenager named Matthew, who helps with the demands of the job, and holds Bryan (whom he’s never met) in awe. Matthew pretty much lives at the news office. He was thrown out by his stepdad, who threatened to kill him when he caught him making out with another boy.

Samuel D. Hunter, who wrote Bright New Boise, The Whale and Clarkston, would seem to have a penchant for honoring the lives of desolate individuals: reaching out to one another, in the midst of quiet catastrophe. Sometimes a meaningful connection occurs, sometimes not. Sometimes it lasts, sometimes it doesn’t. Bryan and QZ collaborate on the paper after he returns from a brief odyssey on the road; believing driving for a living would give his life purpose, and the chance to see America. He soon learns the lifestyle makes meaningful contact impossible. The Few gives Bryan and QZ the opportunity to change lives and even enjoy the company of grateful truckers, who come to visit. It’s not UNICEF or The United Way, but it’s the best they’ve got. And it’s not bad.

There is a profound, pervasive sense of despondency and disappointment that suffuses The Few, though Matthew’s optimism tugs at Bryan (and us). Matthew tries to resuscitate the columnist who eased the ache of disaffected humanity. Matthew clearly needs to restore The Few to its earlier, altruistic beginnings, but Bryan is still struggling to emerge from his malaise and make sense of his intense feelings for QZ. Hunter’s drama feels like Horton Foote or William Inge, without the implied nobility of their characters. Not that we don’t like Hunter’s protagonists. They seem to be pushing the hopelessness of the Midwest (and actually, American culture) like a boulder up a mountainside. We root for Matthew because we care for all three of them, and he hasn’t lived long enough to take on so much discouragement. I can’t imagine any play by Mr. Hunter that isn’t worth our time. The devoted actors, director, and crew et al at Resolute Theatre Project are always astonishing, when it comes to performances filled with authenticity, energy and palpable grace.

Resolute Theatre Project presents The Few, playing October 4th-13th. Amy’s Studio of Performing Arts: 11888 Marsh Lane, Suite 600, Dallas, Texas 75234. resolutetheatreproject.com 972-484-7900

September 1^st, 2004, School Number One in the town of Beslan (in Russia) was celebrating the first day of school. It was a vivid, exhilarating, annual event, attended by parents, teachers and pupils, with much pageantry and exuberance. The crisis began when a group of armed Islamic Militants occupied the school, demanding the recognition of Chechnya’s independence. The Beslan School Siege lasted three days. It involved taking over 1,100 hostages, ending with the deaths of at least 334 people, including 186 kids.

Us/Them by Carly Wijs, is an inspired account of The Beslan Siege, enacted by two “students”, identified in the program as The Boy and The Girl. They are perhaps eight, with enthusiasm for describing their school, easily distracted, playful and eager to show up the other. Though they seem more or less friends. Piece by piece they give us the narrative. The joyful beginning of the school year, the balloons and new clothes, the beaming parents and band music. They are submerged, mostly, in getting the details right, in the same way they might tell you how an old woman and an ice cream vendor fought at the park. Next comes the appearance of soldiers, the herding and sequestering in the gymnasium, the hunger and heat and exhaustion. Even explosions and gunfire take on the same avid, yet calm tone.

The difficulty in dramatizing any catastrophic event, certainly, is doing it justice without amplification. Without unwittingly exploiting the profoundly disturbing nature of the content. In Us/Them Wijs has found a way to embrace the story, by finding narrators who don’t grasp the gravitas of their predicament. Children of that age are still learning what actions mean; their perception is somewhat cursory. They look to grownups for cues, but don’t realize their parents and teachers may be concealing panic.

When the boy and girl consider alternate scenarios to the reality (action movie or media darlings) it makes perfect sense. It also gives audience necessary detachment without soft pedaling the actual tragedy. We can process the story without the embellishment of politics or extreme emotion, comparable to Lee Blessing’s Two Rooms. Wijs has taken us to a realm fraught with atrocity and devastation, and given us the tools to experience it fully. We embrace our humanity, avoiding the natural impulse to shut down.

Wikipedia was invaluable in writing this review.

Echo Theatre and The Milford and Patricia Hammerbacher Grant presented Us/Them at The Bath House Cultural Center in September 2019.

A fairly nonchalant, congenial musical comedy by Austin Winsberg (Book) and Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner (Music and Lyrics) First Date depicts the encounter between Aaron and Casey, who meet at a casual nightclub. Aaron (Seth Womack) is lanky, soft spoken and insecure, while Casey (Anne Marie Flores) is petulant, confrontational and quick to take offense. He dresses like he’s going to the prom and she, like an extra from Mad Max. Of course, any meal with someone you don’t know is going to be awkward, especially when you’re trying to avoid looking like a fool. As the evening regresses and progresses, First Date goes on off on tangents. When Casey reveals she isn’t Jewish, Aaron has a musical interlude with relatives (distant and close) admonishing him not to marry a shiksha. When Casey doesn’t answer her gay friend’s bail-out call, he has a campy meltdown. And so forth. When we check back on Aaron and Casey, their torture is only occasionally mitigated by moments of mutual appreciation.

On the intensity scale, First Date is too streetwise to be The Fantasticks, but not as tumultuous as Children of a Lesser God. Its skepticism is far more gentle than say, His Girl Friday or The Philadelphia Story. Both formidable proof that a story can have verve and distinction, without necessarily rocking the rafters. We care about Casey and Aaron, and the creators are smart enough to hold off on the verdict. It’s hard, though, not to see the parade coming, even before it turns the corner. The supporting cast is strong and versatile, keeping the balls in the air, as the narrative finds it way to plausible resolution. The songs are smart and pensive, ranging from the wistful to amusing, fitting nicely with the in-house band.

First Date’s most salient strength is the charisma and authenticity of its performers. Womack elicits sympathy from any guy required to find the balance between caring and trying too hard. Flores depicts Casey as a strong woman, with no desire to pander to men’s egos. Though that strategy seems pointless with Aaron. The supporting cast is called upon to play numerous roles, and brings clarity and aplomb to each one. When we reflect on the demands of the script, the work here is phenomenal. Not a single actor phones it in. The warmth and joy informing the script comes shining through.

Stage West and Theatre TCU present First Date, playing September 12th- October 13^th, 2019. 821 West Vickery Blvd, Fort Worth, Texas 76104. 817) 784-9378. boxoffice@stagewest.org