Month: June 2023

Four teenage girls create a club to honor deceased, influential leaders, regardless of their values. It includes philanthropists and despots alike. The girls meet in a spacious tree house, a small bit of luxury set apart from the community? Two are Latina (Pipe and Kit) one African American (Squeeze) one Jewish (Zoom) and one a closeted Lesbian (Kit). It suggests diversity but also a spectrum. Each has been wounded by trauma in their life. Pipe it seems, is the one in charge. She’s bossy and petulant. She’s trying to get their club reinstated with the school after an unfortunate incident. She plans to go up before the board, soon. It isn’t obvious from the outset, but sometimes these women gatherto summon the ghosts of their honorees by séance.

Playwright Alexis Scheer has managed a useful ambiguity. Some things the girls say and do are egregious, but because they’re teenagers, so we don’t take it too seriously. Teenagers are notoriously intense. If Romeo and Juliet had a sense of proportion, they wouldn’t be dead. We definitely take their suffering to heart, but when their reasoning seems delusional, it’s not so easy. Zoom discovers she’s pregnant, but says she’s never had sex. We certainly believe that she believes, but she can’t have it both ways. The affect of this group doesn’t seem menacing, but neither do they seem innocuous. Which is to say, they could be both.

This mixture of the somber and the fanciful, the incredible and the foreboding. Something keeps telling us the penny hasn’t dropped. These women, convinced they can raise the soul of Pablo Escobar, have done seances before, but we sense the next might actually work. Even when we’ve seen them kissing a Ken doll and playing clap games they might have been learned at the play ground. We don’t get the feeling that Pipe, Squeeze, Zoom and Kit are a girl gang, who might wind up brawling with other gangs. There’s anger, and there’s gravitas, but their fighting with each other and vindictiveness doesn’t resolve anything. There’s no interpersonal catharsis.

Our Dear Dead Drug Lord is an allegory dressed as tragedy. We don’t know what we know, till we know it. Why do the four lionize a monster like Pablo Escobar? Can they not distinguish the difference between him and a genuine hero? Why is that important to them? At times they seem ridiculous but they are certainly capable of cruelty and disloyalty. It’s almost as if Alexis Scheer is passing the dangerous off as absurd. No one pays attention to the absurd. We’re submerged in the small universe they’ve built to escape an abusive one they can’t ignore. All the fragments in Dead Drug Lord finally fall into place, and we can’t believe we didn’t see it. This is visionary, deadpan, sinister theatre, and you can’t look away. Don’t miss it.

Second Thought Theatre presents Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, playing June 16^th– July 1st, 2023. 3400 Blackburn St, Dallas, TX 75219. (214) 897-3091. secondthoughttheatre.com

 

Four teenage girls create a club to honor deceased, influential leaders, regardless of their values. It includes philanthropists and despots alike. The girls meet in a spacious tree house, a small bit of luxury set apart from the community? Two are Latina (Pipe and Kit) one African American (Squeeze) one Jewish (Zoom) and one a closeted Lesbian (Kit). It suggests diversity but also a spectrum. Each has been wounded by trauma in their life. Pipe it seems, is the one in charge. She’s bossy and petulant. She’s trying to get their club reinstated with the school after an unfortunate incident. She plans to go up before the board, soon. It isn’t obvious from the outset, but sometimes these women gatherto summon the ghosts of their honorees by séance.

Playwright Alexis Scheer has managed a useful ambiguity. Some things the girls say and do are egregious, but because they’re teenagers, so we don’t take it too seriously. Teenagers are notoriously intense. If Romeo and Juliet had a sense of proportion, they wouldn’t be dead. We definitely take their suffering to heart, but when their reasoning seems delusional, it’s not so easy. Zoom discovers she’s pregnant, but says she’s never had sex. We certainly believe that she believes, but she can’t have it both ways. The affect of this group doesn’t seem menacing, but neither do they seem innocuous. Which is to say, they could be both.

This mixture of the somber and the fanciful, the incredible and the foreboding. Something keeps telling us the penny hasn’t dropped. These women, convinced they can raise the soul of Pablo Escobar, have done seances before, but we sense the next might actually work. Even when we’ve seen them kissing a Ken doll and playing clap games they might have been learned at the play ground. We don’t get the feeling that Pipe, Squeeze, Zoom and Kit are a girl gang, who might wind up brawling with other gangs. There’s anger, and there’s gravitas, but their fighting with each other and vindictiveness doesn’t resolve anything. There’s no interpersonal catharsis.

Our Dear Dead Drug Lord is an allegory dressed as tragedy. We don’t know what we know, till we know it. Why do the four lionize a monster like Pablo Escobar? Can they not distinguish the difference between him and a genuine hero? Why is that important to them? At times they seem ridiculous but they are certainly capable of cruelty and disloyalty. It’s almost as if Alexis Scheer is passing the dangerous off as absurd. No one pays attention to the absurd.  We’re submerged in the small universe they’ve built to escape an abusive one they can’t ignore. All the fragments in Dead Drug Lord finally fall into place, and we can’t believe we didn’t see it. This is visionary, deadpan, sinister theatre, and you can’t look away. Don’t miss it.

Second Thought Theatre presents Our Dear Dead Drug Lord, playing June 16^th– July 1st, 2023.  3400 Blackburn Street, Dallas, Texas 75219. 214-897- 3091. secondthoughttheatre.com

 

Gladys runs a truck stop with lots of good stuff including a festive bar with tropical décor (and of course) candy, snacks, hot food (and gas masks?). She lives on the premises in Truth or Consequences New Mexico. It’s clear she hasn’t seen any business in a long time, though she’s fine on her own. She and Uncle Frank, the postman, are great friends. Though the mass (government imposed) exodus has diminished the populace, Frank still faithfully delivers to those left. Her grown daughter Zelda, aches to explore the desolate, realm of totalitarian conquest, convinced that there’s something more and sublime outside the truckstop. A shuttle will arrive tomorrow to carry off the last holdouts but Gladys, Frank and Zelda aren’t budging.

Crystal Jackson’s The Last Truck Stop is a carefully constructed evocation of dystopia. The regime wears the mask of benevolence (after Orwell’s 1984) but intrudes upon privacy and independence. These souls, discouraged and worn down, have found a safe place where they can appreciate each other and find refuge from the crumbling facade of civilization. Gladys wants Zelda to take the shuttle to El Paso, but as much as Zelda despises New Mexico, she’s convinced El Paso is worse. Then everything takes a turn.

Jackson suggests an intense ache, with no detectable sturm und drang. Gladys, Frank and Zelda are making the best, but it’s as if they’re circling the abyss. Facing the actual, but never bitter. Yet there are small assertions of hope. The sense of purpose they embrace. The staticky radio always left on. The letters always carried. The lovemaking that defies despair. Its about hope, but not some abstract, nebulous category of feelings.

The Last Truck Stop finds eloquence in the unspoken. Very little of the character’s damage and sorrow is articulated in so many words. There’s so much emptiness, so much thriving quashed. Jackson has found a delicate balance between palpable resignation and just enough optimism to conquer despondence.

Claire Carson is whimsical and gung ho as Rainbow. Kat Lozano is testy (and more tenderhearted than we might guess) as Zelda (daughter of Gladys). Jamal Sterling shines as the warm, convivial Uncle Frank. Diane Box Worman gives a poignant, emotionally fearless performance as Gladys. Her sorrow, her toughness, her exquisite, raw nerved presence is deeply affecting and unforgettable.

Kitchen Dog Theater presents The Last Truck Stop, playing June 8th-25th, 2023. 2600 North Stemmons Freeway, Suite 180, Dallas, Texas 75207. 214-953-1055. Admin@kitchendogtheater.org

 

When the Danish Prince Hamlet returns from from his travels, only to find havoc, and disturbing behavior between his mother and his uncle, it’s the onset of his spiritual collapse. The ghost of Hamlet’s father appears, to reveal Hamlet’s uncle poisoned him, to marry his wife, and steal his crown. And  they’ve gotten away with it.

Hamlet is overcome by the egregious nature of this crime, and the horrific injustice that it’s gone unpunished. Hence the famous to be or not to be soliloquy ponders if it’s better to leave this world on your own terms, or accept the absurdity, or try to fight when goodness fails. He resolves to feign madness; this will free him to investigate without tipping his hand. He begins to court Ophelia, kind of, but he’s giving off mixed signals like crazy.

Long considered to be William Shakespeare’s most absorbing (and nearly inscrutable) plays, Hamlet stands apart in its complexity and daring attempt to address especially troubling issues. Hamlet may seem to be insane, but how does that speak to a life strategy? If the world doesn’t hold to some unchanging logic, perhaps madness is the only thing that makes sense.

The taking of a life as a means to get by, to function, is key in Hamlet. Perhaps a touchstone. Murder may be revenge or self-defense or to conceal our own crimes, but to do so is to meddle with the balance of the universe. Ironically in Hamlet, victims die by accident, by design, by ridiculous happenstance. Even duels are rigged. No matter how we fight for some sense of reason, or purpose, or simple contentment, events would appear to happen by some inexplicable, perverse logic.

I’ve been intrigued by the recent practice of some theaters casting against cisgender sex, I assume for the sake of broadening our sense of what gender actually means. Femaleness and maleness (and everything else along the spectrum). Not necessarily polarized but not absent either. And certainly these are worthy questions.

If a female plays a male character, a woman plays a prince, is it a comment on androgyny, or the deconstruction of gender indoctrination, or simply a woman depicting a man? I do not raise these questions by way of disparagement but rather to consider the experience aimed for, the expectations behind the choice.

Isabella Wilson plays Hamlet, with avid, congenial, kinetic energy. It almost feels too obvious to mention the sentience, presence and clarity needed are stupefying. Ms. Wilson gets a head of steam going, and it’s amazing to see. Much of the show calls for manic emotion and pensive affect. Shakespeare has designed Hamlet to stand in for us, the audience, who share his deep despair in the midst of havoc and abject misery. I’m not altogether certain Wilson has lived quite long enough to bring the necessary gravitas, but it’s easy to see that everything she does, she does with the strength of her convictions.

Outcry Youth Theatre, a cutting-edge troupe that specializes in showcasing younger actors, recently staged Hamlet (a difficult drama for any theatre) with compelling vision, intense dedication and intriguing innovation. The metaphoric concept of clocks appear and reappear throughout the show, a reminder of our mortality. Only humans keep time because only they have use for it.

The performers rise to the occasion with humor, humanity and smartness. As is so often the case with Outcry, dance numbers to contemporary music emerge to elucidate and comment on substance and story. The alienation and exasperation of rock songs enhanced this production of Hamlet, immeasurably.

The gracious folks at Outcry Youth Theatre let me attend Hamlet on closing weekend. They will always make you feel welcome.

1915 North Central Expressway, Suite 120, Plano, TX, United States, Texas (Not actual theater address).(972) 836-7206. outcrytheatre@gmail.com outcrytheatre.com.

Peter and Frances are newlyweds. For reasons of convenience, the bank Peter works for owns the apartment on the second floor, where they live. They are waiting for the arrival of Peter’s mother, Eleanor, who will be an overnight guest. Brian is Peter’s colleague at the bank. He’s here to bring a wedding gift and accompany Peter to the “salt mines”. At some point Brian signs for a package delivery, supposedly some china Frances ordered. Peter isn’t there when the two open it. In a fit of curiosity, Brian fairly tears into the package, only to discover gobs and gobs of pornographic photographs. He subsequently freaks, giddier than your Aunt Nancy on hash. This will happen more than once. Obviously it’s a mistake, but not so easily resolved. They can’t just throw them in the trash, because the rubbish collectors will know from whence they came.

Set in England in 1973, written by Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot, No Sex, Please, Were British is a comedy of manners. A reflection on propriety. An uninvited parcel of contraband arrives, a catastrophe in the making. Peter and Frances feverishly try to sort out why they’re the recipients, and more urgently, the most expedient way to ditch the stuff. Supposedly, if this box didn’t contain smut, they wouldn’t be making such ridiculous choices. They keep fobbing off the pornography on Brian, a subordinate, without once asking themselves if he’s even remotely reliable. The possibility of scandal, of giving profound offense, of Peter and Brian losing their jobs gives way to hysteria. Why not take it to somebody else’s trash can? Why not take it to the woods and leave it there? It’s not as if the photographs depict anything well and truly sinister.

But of course, rationality has flown the coop. As Marriott and Foot suggest, it isn’t the presence of sex in the world. It’s demonstrated the characters are active and comfortable with lovemaking. It’s the terror of having one’s character called into question. And yet, each possible solution they can come up with is worse than the last. They try to conceal the hot box, and something worse shows up. It’s like Whack-A -Mole (c) or The Monkey’s Paw. I have a theory that Brian exists, mainly to complicate things and amplify the chaos with histrionics. Of course the piling on of one improbable result after another, just makes for escalating hilarity.

Director Janette Oswald brings her gift for managing such meshugaas, while keeping the plot crisp and articulated. She balances the attractions in this three-ring circus handily. Eddy Herring (Superintendant Paul) Ian Grygotis (Peter Hunter) Sara Parisa (Frances Hunter) Grant Palmore (Brian Runnicles) Sue Goodner (Eleanor Hunter) Anthony Magee (Leslie Bromhead )Robert Dullnig (Delivery Man) Camilla Norder (2^nd Delivery Man) Blake Rice (Mr. Needham )Laura Jennings (Susan) Penny Elaine (Barbara) Katy Hill (The Other Barbara ) Not an easy task, surely, summoning this insanity, with no fear of fatality, injury or leaving a mark.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents: No Sex, Please, We’re British, playing May 26th-June 11^th, 2023/ 518 West Arapaho Road, Suite 113, Richardson, Texas 75080. 972-699-1130. richardsontheatrcenter.net

Set in March 1948, in Highland Hospital, in Asheville, North Carolina, The Last Flapper depicts the life of Zelda Fitzgerald (wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald) a few days before her death in a fire. It is essentially, a one-act, an extended monologue along the lines of The Belle of Amherst and Gertrude Stein, Getrude Stein, Gertrude Stein. Zelda grabs the opportunity to dig into her psychiatrist’s desk when he cancels their appointment. She invites us in, takes us into her confidence, making eye-contact and speaking directly to audience members. She is friendly, forthcoming, playful, frank.

Before she met Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda was well known in Montgomery, Alabama. A daughter of the wealthy Sayre family, she defied notions of appropriate behavior for young ladies, and payed little attention to the admonitions of her conservative parents. She married Scott Fitzgerald not long after the success of This Side of Paradise. A novelist, playwright and painter herself, she and Scott became the glamorous, notorious couple of the Roaring Twenties, drinking freely, pranking at parties, ignoring social conventions.

As career authors do, they hobnobbed with other artists, visiting Europe, flaunting the sybaritic life of intellect and disdain for convention. Scott discovers an intense connection with Ernest Hemingway. Zelda’s mental health deteriorates, and she is sent to Johns Hopkins for treatment. Over the years of being institutionalized (and ostracized) Zelda is subjected to Electro and insulin shock therapy. It’s not clear how much malpractice occurred, due to negligence, incompetence or the primitive days of early psychotherapy, but clearly Zelda lacked zealous treatment and advocacy.

If we consider her predicament and the times, Flappers asserted their right to dress seductively, drink like fish, be promiscuous; perhaps very adult and very childlike at the same time. This was the essence of Zelda. It was marvelously charming until she asked for desperately needed attention. Not like: look at me, attention, but to salvage a soul in jeopardy. In the context of male ego and the patriarchy, it’s very possible she was gaslit by her husband (among others) and her career and talents diminished and dismissed.

Catherine DuBord’s performance as Zelda is astonishing, intuitive and quietly dazzling. When she shares an anecdote from her past, summoning an exchange with her mama (pinning up her wedding gown) a first dinner with Scott and her parents (It’s nobody’s God Damned business) we are immediately submerged in the moment, a mixture of effusive girlishness and unapologetic defiance. DuBord creates Zelda with something of a kaleidoscope: her intelligence, her insouciance, her anger, her despair. One moment she’s lighter than a fairy, the next she’s sunken in despondence. It’s truly a privilege to witness an actor of DuBord’s caliber play Zelda with authenticity, depth, and something far beyond the sum of Zelda’s parts.

This is not to be missed.

Belle Sauvage and Theatre Too (@ Theatre Three) presents Catherine DuBord in The Last Flapper, playing June 1st-11th, 2023. 2688 Laclede Street, Dallas, Texas 75201. 214-871-3300 www.bellesauvage.us