Month: February 2020

I need to start this review on a personal note. I grew up in a household with a distant dad, two older sisters, and a diligent mother. My mama was/is nothing short of heroic. She divorced when it was frowned upon, after 25 years of trying to make a bellicose marriage work. She earned as much as any woman could at the time. She made sacrifices I cannot begin to imagine, to give us what we needed to succeed and protect me, her bi-polar son, from a world I didn’t understand. I am 200% behind the #metoo movement, and loathe the condescension, misogyny, marginalizing and oppression women must endure daily, in the midst of a toxic patriarchy. If I turned into a woman tomorrow, I wouldn’t last a day. Or I’d invest in a Louisville Slugger and crack some skulls.

Kate Hamill’s stage adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, is an episodic gloss that extols the now familiar, nearly ubiquitous story of the March women. It is in some ways, ingenious. For instance, Hamill’s device of revisiting Jo March’s play with her male, caricatured, male uber-villain, is intriguing and efficient. Sarah Rasmussen’s direction is crisp and pointed, navigating a somewhat distilled attempt to cover a lot of material purposefully, hitting the high notes, and paying close attention to turning points. The cast (Jennie Greenberry, Pearl Rhein, Maggie Thompson, Lilli Hokama, Louis Rheyes McWillians, Sally Nystuen Vahle, Liz Mikel, Alex Organ, Mike Sears, Andrew Crowe) is able, strong and versatile, often shifting gears to keep up with seachanges and the brisk pace. Hamill preserves vivid details of the period, from diction to dishes to (naturally) cultural constraints. I wonder what the experience might be for someone coming to this drama for the first time, with no other context?

In some ways the struggles of the March sisters culminate in the rebellious Jo March, whose anger is focused and heartbreaking. The others, Meg, Amy and Beth, must deal with their own challenges. The never-ending demands of motherhood, financial survival and attachment to men, the cost of charitable sacrifice. As Jo continues to fight the battles that injustice demands, the other three must make their own hard choices. Anyone familiar with the story knows the excruciating incident in which Laurie is disappointed by Jo’s response to his proposal.. She cherishes him, but it’s not the kind of love he feels for her. Alcott, in her bold exploration of role reversal, depicts the painful ordeal of choosing what we’re told we should want, and forfeiting something just as splendid. The fact that Jo may be the stronger one on this occasion, makes her no happier.

Though Dallas Theater Center’s production of Little Women was inventive, salient, forceful, poignant (in some ways) and very, very smart, I found myself frustrated and disappointed in its conception. We have reached a glorious point in American history, when the revelation of systemic male exploitation and abuse of women, is finally there for all to see. Much of the victim shaming and celebrity leveraging has been called into serious question, and it’s about fucking time. I’ve seen DTC’s Little Women celebrated as feminist and the queer interpretation of Josephine’s character, and I celebrate those too. Honestly. But then I ask myself, when Alcott wrote Little Women, wasn’t it always feminist? Wasn’t Jo always queer, whether in sexual identity or politics or both? Isn’t the undeniable presence of this ideology, this fighting spirit sufficiently evinced in the lives of the March women, without the need to enhance it? Especially to the detriment of the content as a whole?

Why diminish the roles of Marmy, the father, Aunt March, et al? I don’t think the father spoke a single line. I get that Hamill finds ways to include key details. But I missed the scenes where Marmy confides her doubts, Amy explains her limited choices, Aunt March makes it clear that she understands why Jo is the way she is. Of course, none of these are fatal flaws. I want to say, unequivocally, there is much to recommend this show. I completely respect every production’s desire to put their own shape and identity to a particular piece. But it’s too bad that they’ve taken a story they describe as “timeless” (exactly) and make it something it doesn’t need to be.

The Dallas Theater Center presents Little Women, playing February 7^th, March 1^st, 2020. 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd. Dallas, Texas 75219. 214-522-8499 or www.DallasTheaterCenter.org

My Sunday afternoon experience with The Drowsy Chaperone was nothing short of stupendous. Flawlessly timed comedy and delightful, wonderfully loopy shenanigans. I love my excursions with Firehouse Theatre and their mastery of musical theatre. Derek Whitener is a whiz-bang genius and (Dear God!) I can’t imagine how he managed the logistics of this show. It would make Rube Goldberg proud. To the cast and crew: How do you DO it???!! Doubled up on the Superfood? Tripled up on the Ovaltine? Red Bull and Jolt Cola? Kudos to you for your superb, brilliant performance, the unmitigated joy you brought me, and the spring you put in my step. Lon Barrera you sly boots! Shame on you. Making me giggle then touching my heart so profoundly at the end! There oughta be a law!

Identified only as Man-in-the Chair, our narrator and host, plays a vinyl recording for us of a (fictitious) 1928 musical called The Drowsy Chaperone. It’s all there. The young, gorgeous, adorable actress. The handsome, guileless, fresh-faced fiance who’s head over heels. Drowsy is set on the day of the wedding, but (naturally) there are complications. The producer is being hounded by thugs (disguised as pastry chefs) sent by a gangster with considerable money invested in the Broadway show. If the actress gets married and leaves the production, the show is kaput. Additional complications include a best man with too much to handle, serving liquor during prohibition, a ditzy blonde with clueless ambitions, and the notorious chaperone. Now, for those more savvy among you, the title itself should be a tip-off. Whatever else a chaperone might be (for Christ’s sake!) the last thing she should be is drowsy. “Drowsy” (so it seems) is code for schnockered, in polite company. This chaperone might be described as everyone’s favorite deranged Auntie, whose only concern might be: Where’s my next drink?

Written by Lisa Lambert and Greg Morrison (Music and Lyrics) Bob Martin and Don McKellar (Book)

The Drowsy Chaperone is that most confounding of all spectacles: a theatre comedy that actually comes off. The gags are almost nonstop, which, unless you’re Bug’s Bunny, is nearly always a recipe for disaster. Honest. It rarely works. It’s like watching those plate-spinners on Ed Sullivan. You think: they couldn’t possible push any further. But they make it happen. Then there’s our host. He interrupts the show, he digresses, he gossips, he confides the backstory of the starring performers. He has no illusions about musical comedy fitting into the workaday world of the 21^st century, and summarily robs us of ours. And yet, it only revs up the musical itself.

Drowsy is the quintessential musical comedy, if ever there was one. Now we say “iconic” Ugh! It’s a valentine to the insane, glorious, fizzy, improbable world they create on the stage, to our awe and delight. It might also be a commentary on stardom, glamour, entertainment, and the cultivated illusion of intimacy. In The Threepenny Opera, Brecht consistently pulls us out of the story (to invite comparisons between theatre and actuality) and Drowsy does the same thing. It’s improbable that Man-in-the Chair is straight, but he might be. Martin and McKellar take very deliberate steps to reassure us that he is not creating this delusional, fantasy world, in forfeiture of the world as it is. Yet, the show culminates in his meeting and befriending (what I took to be) the characters? All this being said, with all it’s insistent, subversive hi-jinks, The Drowsy Chaperone is a breakthrough and a gift.

The Firehouse Theatre presents: The Drowsy Chaperone playing January 30th-February 23^rd. (Closing weekend!) 2535 Valley View Ln. Farmers Branch, Texas 75234. (972) 620-3747. www.thefirehousetheatre.com

 

As many of you know, Daedalus was one of the great architects of Greek mythology. He fashioned a disguise for Pasiphae to seduce Zeus (when he turned himself into a white bull) the labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur, and wings that would let he and his son, Icarus soar. Knowing Icarus would be tempted, Daedalus warns him against flying too close to the sun, lest it melt the wax that held the wings together. Enthralled by the experience, Icarus forgets,  plummets into the ocean, and drowns.

Created by Becca Johnson-Spinos, Logan Beutel (Daedalus) and Dylan Weand (Icarus) Dreams of Icarus takes the mythological premise and runs with it, after making Icarus and Daedalus brothers, instead of son and father. Loosely speaking, Daedalus is the practical engineer, while Icarus is the visionary and storyteller. When Dreams of Icarus opens the two brothers have been imprisoned in a steep tower until Daedalus agrees to do the King’s bidding. During their confinement they process many unresolved conflicts from their personal history. They love each other fiercely, and perhaps too often, clobber each other when they disagree. They struggle to work out an escape, the theoretical promise of wings looming just beyond their reach. They need each other, more than they know.

Never in my experience as a theatre critic have I found another company to compare with Outcry, and their brilliance at finding the intersection of the ethereal, the dazzling, the visceral, the terrifying, the enraged and the sublime. Becca Johnson-Spinos has found a way to create a hybrid between choreography and stage movement that is captivating and rich. Dreams of Icarus doesn’t only explore the poignant attachment between Daedalus and Icarus, but all brothers, with all the tumultuous, kinetic, vibrant capaciousness of powerful emotion. The monologues are intuitive, oracular, fanciful, yet (forgive the expression) “grounded” in human experience. You can feel the brothers groping to articulate the nebulous, elusive revelations that we all ache to put into words, but the result here is transformative.

At the outset, I was a bit muddled by some of the liberties taken, but once I gave myself permission to set those aside, I was overcome by the audacity and palpable sense of the metaphysical this astonishing show attained. Somehow Dreams of Icarus weaves together myriad associations with flight: soaring, swooning, ecstasy, defiance, bravado, unfettered joy.

Special note must be taken of Gabrielle Grafrath’s remarkable wings, crucial to the success of this piece. Ms. Grafrath conceived them flawlessly, depicting them as something utilitarian, canny, but also giddy with fluffy feathers, just right to take us second star to the right and straight on till morning.

Of course any play is a group effort, but how did team Outcry come up with this improbable marvel? Years ago a movie was released called My Dinner with Andre and before you drove to the show, you thought: “How? How, how, how, how, how?” Almost two hours of searching conversation? How can it possibly work? And yet, Dreams of Icarus, like My Dinner, trusts its impulses. It not only evinces this dream of flight, but takes us along for the glorious ride.

Outcry Theatre’s Dreams of Icarus played December 20th-29th, 2019. 972-836-9206. outcrytheatre.com

 

Written by Larissa Fasthorse, The Thanksgiving Play is a spoof on political correctness. Political correctness defined as treating the marginalized, vilified, systemically subjugated, or otherwise abused communities, with respect and deference. Such groups might include, Indigenous Americans, Women, Jews, African Americans, Muslims, LGBTQ. Those who cleave to the ideology of political correctness (safe to say) have honorable, conscientious, and vigilant good intentions. They strive to diminish the pain and misery endured by our fellow human beings, throughout the world. Throughout history.

Logan is a very progressive, Junior High School Drama teacher, who is staging the school Thanksgiving play. She was recently reprimanded for her production of The Iceman Cometh; the content apparently too controversial for scholars on the cusp of adolescence. Logan has invited Jaxton, her erstwhile lover and kindred spirit, in the enigmatic realm of conceptual theatre. Jaxton and Logan grasp the benefits of meditation, improvisation and the metaphysical, when building a script. Alicia is an actress hired to be part of this very lofty Thanksgiving narrative. Mistaking a headshot of Alicia for her actual ethnicity, Logan was thrilled to employ an “actual” Native American. Caden is a history teacher. His grisly details of ceremonies concurrent with the first Thanksgiving, are somewhat inappropriate to the occasion.

All four of these collaborator/performers (with the possible exception of Alicia) are gung-ho about the project. Brainstorming, considering various hooks and angles, throwing out ideas. All bearing in mind they must rise above the imperialist, patriarchal arrogance of their forbears. Sadly, they lack practical grounding when it comes to execution. Logan feels it would be wrong to cast someone who isn’t Indian to play one, though it’s not as if they’re turning any away. Her solution of honoring them by their absence is perhaps giving students and parents too much credit. Caden, Alicia, Logan and Jaxton are a sweet bunch, but their idealism ultimately seems too nebulous to drop anchor.

Fasthorse’s strategy for The Thanksgiving Play is fairly sound. While it never feels cynical, and intellectual skills of the teachers never in question, we’re meant to regard them as flakes. Someone’s left the cake out in the rain. The central premise (evolved, cerebral liberals woefully deficient in theatrical articulation) is serviceable, if overworked. Which is not to say she doesn’t have a point. It’s not that political correctness is necessarily an affectation or insipid bourgeois quickfix. We see the characters performing their goofy holiday songs in ridiculous costumes and how easily they’re sidetracked, and of course, it’s amusing. But none of them seems to notice the resulting event is a debacle.

Thanksgiving Play closed December 1^st, 2019.