Month: November 2022

Clay, a handsome, well-dressed, intelligent African American man is riding the subway (alive with chaotic jumble of graffiti) when Lula makes brief eye contact with him, through a window. At the next stop, she enters the train, and starts talking to Clay. They are alone. She squats like a child on the passenger seat. She is at once startling and erotic and poisonous. She immediately starts in, accusing him of ogling and flirtation. She’s confrontational, but she craves his advances, or insults him. It’s obvious he’s been nothing but a gentleman. There’s a vague, disparaging hubris to her affect, yet also primal in her spare, dishy, emerald dress. She’s seducing him, while throwing out all kinds of mixed signals. She goads him without mercy, spilling racist invective, accusing him of pretentiousness and cowardice.

They spar for awhile, as Lula drags him by the necktie then shoves him away. During a blackout, some guys board the train and settle in. This near-brawl between Clay and Lula only gets louder and more disturbing. The men (scattered throughout the train) ignore what’s going on right beneath their noses, like watching TV on the sofa while your house burns. She keeps coming on to Clay, climbing on him. He keeps cursing her to get the hell off. Eventually Clay and Lula are locked in sexual contact, managing while staying mostly clothed. Then something catastrophic happens.

From the moment Lula boards the train and finds Clay, she has one goal. She wants him to engage. To catch him off-guard. She degrades and confuses him, whether by temptation or verbal abuse, or chattering monologues that are nonsensical, grim, or both. Like Jerry in The Zoo Story her dialogue is frantic, sometimes but dominant. One difference is that Lula makes a point of bullying Clay from square one. Her behavior is egregious. It’s obvious she’s neither Clay’s spiritual nor intellectual equal. And she flaunts it, confident she can defy the social order without reprisal. The bout was fixed before the first bell.

Joey Folsom and the brave artists who throw in their caps with The Classics Theatre Project, have proved, once again, that old or new, American Theatre still has the power to astonish. To grip and overwhelm. Amiri Baraka, a preeminent poet of the American Literary Canon, released the notorious Dutchman in 1964. Many playwrights began as poets, but the brilliant Mr. Baraka has crafted a script that fuses dialogue and verse seamlessly. The sensibility is apparent, not overshadowed by music of language. Brentom (Chuck) Jackson and Rhonda Sue Rose bring biting audacity and fearless rage to Clay and Lula. Dutchman is an allegory of broken, desolate racism, to be sure, but as it unfolds, you will be swallowed in the moment.

The Classics Theatre Project presents Dutchman, directed by Dennis Raveneau. Playing November 11th-26th, 2022. 1121 1^st Avenue, Dallas Texas 75210. 214- 923-3619. theclassics theatreproject.com

Bella Baird is an introspective, sentient English Professor at Yale. Like many intellectuals, she finds reassurance in irony and a sense of proportion. A freshman named Christopher shows up at her office, without an appointment. He proclaims his disappointment with people, and the diminishment of interpersonal discourse. He has no desire to participate in insipid platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, texting, and so forth. He has strong opinions but he’s not wrong. We sense that Bella and he become closer because (whether or not they disagree) they respect each other. Christopher is a prodigy, though this may or may not explain their intergenerational attachment. They would seem to be cut from the same cloth, but we don’t know if sex is in the mix. One evening it feels as if they’re ready for “the next level”. It doesn’t happen, and a prolonged absence by Christopher follows.

The Sound Inside considers the intimacy between Christopher and Bella. At first she’s annoyed by his petulance and lack of manners. The rebellion of youth is certainly not front page news, but it’s more than that. She’s intrigued by Christopher, because his motives aren’t obvious. He’s not interested in being understood, or fixing anything. When he hesitates to complete the kiss, he seems crippled by indecision. When they meet for coffee, or he visits her apartment, there’s a comforting, shared erudition that nurtures their spirits. The revelation there’s another human being who empathizes. We see how each values themselves enough to live on their own terms. But it’s not about hubris. They’re quirky, and not especially angry. Christopher’s trying to be content in the world without resorting to compromise. A lesser play might have invited us to judge Bella and Christopher or dismiss them for their refusal to pander.

Playwright Adam Rapp has woven a delicate, wistful show that ushers us into a realm of velvet, nearly opaque nightfall. I confess to a feeling of dread, that was never fulfilled. His choices are inspired and not at all predictable. His two characters ingenious and original. Obviously there are dramas that wade into despair, unblinking and without apology. Birdbath, The Iceman Cometh, Sticks and Bones, Martyr. There’s an unspoken tenderness between them, an evasive grace that washes over us, without pounding upside the head. The events that follow Christopher’s unexplained departure elaborate and detail the narrative. Neither of them are apathetic or nihilistic. They engage in the random blows the world imposes, but struggles are intuitive and measured. Rapp presents this wounding, somber, whispery story as if laying out stones and amulets and herbs. Information is withheld, but we grasp in a way that foregoes linear logic.

Karen Parrish (Bella) and Parker Hill (Christopher) bring a curious, exquisite balance of gravitas and insouciance to this explication of sorrow and the sublime. Parrish gives us a nuanced portrayal of Bella, and her keen, abject affair with literature. She’s quiet but she doesn’t brood. She’s somewhat guarded, but warm. Hill conveys that sense of wonder that comes so easily in Freshman year. Undeniably brilliant, but open to the irresistible quandaries that keep things interesting. Vaguely eccentric, but defiant. The Sound Inside, spare and vivid and enigmatic as haiku, turns on the performances of Parker Hill and Karen Parrish. Their every step weightless, balletic, firm, and astonishing.

Kitchen Dog presents The Sound Inside (by Adam Rapp) playing November 3rd-20th, 2022. The Trinity Arts Center, 2600 N Stemmons Fwy Suite 180 Dallas, TX 75207. 214-953-1055. www.kitchendogtheater.org

Seeking refuge from the 17^th century bubonic Plague of London, a 12 year old girl named Morse and a sailor named Bunce, sneak into the opulent home of William and Darcy Snelgrave, a well-heeled married couple of the aristocracy. The Snelgraves take pity. Considering the rampant, excruciating, degrading loss of life, respite seems little enough to ask. The Snelgraves clean them up, setting Bunce to wiping floors with vinegar, and giving Morse free reign. More or less. The only other human being they see is Kabe, a scavenger who runs a kind of black market, pilfering from the dead. He knows raunchy songs and barters with Morse for the privilege of kissing her leg.

Darcy and William have been married for awhile. They no longer make love since she was burned horribly in a fire. Despite her emotional and physical misery, William subjugates and degrades her. Bunce is a gentle soul, who’s had his fill of the navy. Morse is one of those kids who takes ghoulish pleasure in describing grisly, lurid details of the cadavers, and ubiquitous, dissolution of the doomed and infirm. Perhaps this is her way of processing, but she does go on a bit. Kabe is well aware of his place on the food chain, and not at all shy about how he subsists. An opportunist who’s happy to exploit the catastrophic. Like Mother Courage without scruples.

William explains, repeatedly, how distasteful his guests are, but his Christian noblesse oblige requires charity and compassion. His effete arrogance seems harmless enough, until we see him tormenting and harassing Bunce. He insists that Bunce puts on his shoes. Then, once he’s comfortable, demands that Bunce proclaim he’ll never be worthy of wearing them. In another incident, he salaciously asks the erstwhile sailor about supposed homoerotic adventures. Clearly William wishes to stoke his solitary, nocturnal recreation, but only fails to sully Bunce’s tender memories.

Playwright Naomi Wallace has taken intense, grueling content to explore atrocity, brutality, and amorality. It’s harrowing and draining to witness. In his essay: The Theatre and the Plague, Antonin Artaud posits the desperation of extreme circumstances, as an ideal paradigm for revealing humanity at its worst. If we find ourselves in dystopia, when society’s restrictions have essentially vanished, nothing is off limits. Ms. Wallace goes for the light touch, avoiding amplification. The circumstances are horrific enough. Anything else would be crass and manipulative. Wallace makes it clear that the Snelgraves are only as “Christian” as they need appear. They presume the indigent are decadent by divine design.

The humanity of Drew Wall’s Bunce is a marvel. Christie Vela carries quiet dignity and persistent disappointment, with frailty and resignation. Gregory Lush’s William is an intriguing blend of barely concealed pettiness and insipid rectitude. Carson Wright’s Kabe is incorrigible and savvy. He may be mercenary, but his unapologetic turpitude seems to work. Montserrat Rodriguez’s Morse has an enchanted, subversive feel. Her narratives are bleak, repugnant, yet fanciful.

Second Thought Theater’s production of One Flea Spare is meticulous, canny, disturbing. There’s an offhand, familial feel, that seems innocuous enough. But gradually, indirectly, the actual impact and despair comes through. It’s an odd mix of the tawdry and the brave. Hypocrisy and the sanctity of the unashamed.

Second Thought Theater presents One Flea Spare, playing October 26th-November 12^th, 2022. 3400 Blackburn St, Dallas, TX, 75219. Bryant Hall, Kalita Humphreys Campus. (214) 897-3091. secondthoughttheatre.com

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein travels to the castle where his grandfather, Victor Frankenstein created his notorious, jeery-rigged “monster”. Much to the dismay of the villagers, the creature ran amok, terrorizing the populace and raising havoc. The experiment was (pretty much) an all-around fiasco. Frederick meets Igor, and Frau Blucher, who knew and assisted Victor, back in the day. Already a successful doctor, he insists (loudly) that he’s no interest in continuing his grandfather’s work. But somehow, Igor and Blucher convince him his true destiny is inescapable. No ordinary mortal, he climbs the shoulders of ancestors, continuing the megalomaniacal need to create life.

As many of you know, the film, Young Frankenstein, was released by Mel Brooks in 1974. Shot in black and white, using sets evoking the original, Universal Studio’s Frankenstein (1931). It was an unapologetic spoof of the horror classic. You might say Brooks built a career on peerless (or at least, inspired) audacity. There’s a kind of brilliance in his subversive, adolescent need to undercut a romantic goodbye between Frederick and his fiancee, when she admonishes: “No tongues.” Young Frankenstein was all about vaudevillian, throwaway shtick. You had to pay attention. An anachronistic reference to Ovaltine, a monologue channeling the quintessential, doting Jewish Mother. Even if some of the content was lost in the Bible Belt, by and large, it worked.

By now, film transliterated into Broadway Musical qualifies as a reliable, bankable venture. 9 ½, Hairspray, The Producers, are all successful versions of this relatively recent genre, first cousin perhaps to musicals made from familiar plays. Hello Dolly from The Matchmaker, My Fair Lady from Pygmalion, Chicago from the comedy of the same name, written in the 1920’s. The trick to conversion, is to compose a different incarnation from the source material. Hairspray the Musical is very different in tone and execution from John Waters’ low-key paean to the disenfranchised and underdog. It’s true to the spirit, but in some ways transcends the film. The Producers (ironically) also by Mel Brooks, expands on the classic film, going off on tangents and celebrating the familiar narrative, but making for a notably different experience.

Which brings us to Young Frankenstein (The Mel Brooks Musical). The stage production is virtually the same as the film, which got an 80% boost by mocking the parent film. The musical was probably designed to entice those who love the Brooks film, and those who don’t know it. It’s the same clever, saucy material, with songs that will tickle and amuse. Brooks, of course, is no stranger to blue humor, and never tires of sneaking a whoopee cushion onto the throne of the posh and pretentious. If he showed up on the set of Cries and Whispers he and Bergman might come to blows. This being said, we know from The Producers that with a push, something more phenomenal was possible.

Theatre 3’s excellent production of Young Frankentein is campy and shameless and hilarious. The cast (Aaron Mateo, Arroyo, Annie Olive Cahill, Leslie Marie Collins, Edward Michael, Escamilla, Sarah Gay, Parker Gray, Luke Longacre, Paulette Cocke, Samantha Padilla, Alejandro Saucedo) is bravura, sharp, and silly as hell. Parker Gray savors the loopy, delirious energy of the good doctor. (What’s up with that hair?) It has a great sense of showmanship, and Joel Ferrell keeps things humming, while not ignoring the juicy bits.

Theatre 3 presents Young Frankenstein (The Mel Brooks Musical) playing October 13th-November 13^th, 2022. 214-871-3300. 2688 Laclede Street, Suite 120, Dallas, Texas 75201. www.Theatre3Dallas.com.