Month: March 2024

Perhaps Tennessee William’s best known (and least outre’) drama, The Glass Menagerie is the story of Tom, Amanda, and Laura Wingfield, who share an apartment in Saint Louis. Tom is a writer who works in a shoe factory, Amanda (his mother) keeps house, and Laura (his sister) who is somewhat impaired. Her spirit wounded, n some profound way. She spends time listening to music, and tendfing to her collection of small animals, made of glass. Amanda was raised in privilege, in the Deep South, as were presumably, Tom and Laura. When their father deserted them, they were forced to move and make do on very little. Amanda spends a great deal of time reminiscing about the halcyon days of her young womanhood, surrounded by “gentlemen callers”;  taking us into a realm outside of the grubby, unforgiving world. She corrects Tom, constantly, interrogating about his nightly haunts.

Williams has created a story of three human beings trying to find refuge and distraction from disappointment and adversity. They don’t fit in ordinary life, not really. So Amanda takes excursions to the past. Tom writes poetry, and goes to the movies, and drinks. And Laura has her collection. Amanda nags to help her children better themselves. Tom gets drunk and stays out late to nullify the pain. Even when he flees, he can’t escape the guilt of leaving to salvage his own life. There is an exquisite sadness to The Glass Menagerie. Tom is both narrator and participant. He steps outside the conflagration, providing context and the warm illumination of care, for his family and himself.

The Classics Theatre Project consistently brings insightful, original angles to familiar pieces from the American Theatre canon. Director Jackie Kemp has brought his unique vision to Glass Menagerie. The set suggests a home decorated with taste but struggling with destitution. The acting style feels nuanced and matter-of-fact. Except, naturally, Amanda, whose grand bearing is only heightened by comparison. There’s something about Laura’s clothes that suggest the little girl. We experience a kind of airiness to the Wingfield living room. Perhaps something elegant but slight? For lack of a better word, this production felt more proletariat than other productions I’d seen.  A choice made (I’m thinking) to enhance the accessibility of the story.

The Classics Theatre Project presents: The Glass Menagerie. Playing March 8, 2024 – April 13, 2024. Stone Cottage in Addison, 15650 Addison Road, Addison, TX 75001. 214-923-3619. theclassicstheatreproject.com

Flanagan’s Wake is set in an Irish Pub. In Ireland. A wake is held for the mourners to keep vigil (the casket on the premises) for the loved one, on the way to his last reward. Rosaries are prayed, anecdotes shared, toasts proposed.  Flanagan’s Wake is perhaps less somber an endeavor. The closed casket is far upstage, and his friends are visiting and hoisting stout. The departed’s girlfriend is in attendance and (naturally) she keeps trying to climb into the casket. Too often the women in Flanagans’s Wake must endure disparagement for the frequency of their nighttime recreation (bed blanket bingo) though certainly, it’s a given that the guys are all horndogs. (Who knew?) If a stereotype of blue collar Irish culture is omitted, it is not for want of trying.

On the way in, they assign a name tag, so you are easy pickens for the amusement of actor and audience alike. As we are settling in, they ask for a show of hands from all the Catholics. I asked if Episcopalians counted, and they dismissed me, loudly and without thought. Throughout the show they pulled audience members onto the stage, swinging from friendly and patient, to cheerfully disdainful. Raucous and rowdy and awash in high spirits. It’s marvelous how it seems like an authentic wake (not that I’d know) when clearly it isn’t. The good Father seems especially churlish (like Brother Theodore?) abusing audience improvisation with remarks like: Well, that was stupid, or What you were thinking? Why should we laugh at such jibes and taunts? It’s not caustic, perhaps just another patch in this joyfully ridiculous quilt.

Gotta give mad props to the cast and crew of Flanagan’s Wake and Allen Contemporary Theatre for taking the pulse, of these so often disappointing times. I was certainly trying my best to chase away those pesky, cold-hearted blues when I headed to ACT for a Saint Patrick’s Day matinee. Seems this preposterous, deadpan comedy, with it’s shameless use of puns, shaggy dog stories, improvisation and stereotypes (no one is spared, especially the Irish) was just the remedy I was aching for. Right about now I’m thinking we’re all famished for wisecracking merriment. Treat yourself to some playful comfort.

Allen Contemporary Theater presents Flanagan’s Wake, playing March 15th-31st, 2024. 1206 East Main Street #105, Allen, TX 75002. 844-822-8849. allencontemporarytheatre.net

Flanagan’s Wake is set in an Irish Pub. In Ireland. A wake is held for the mourners to keep vigil (the casket on the premises) for the loved one, on the way to his last reward. There are rosaries, prayed by those gathered. Flanagan’s Wake is perhaps less pious an endeavor. The closed casket is far upstage, and his friends are visiting and hoisting stout. The departed’s girlfriend is in attendance and (naturally) she keeps trying to climb into the casket. Too often the women in Flanagans’s Wake must endure disparagement for the frequency of their nighttime recreation (bed blanket bingo) though certainly, it’s a given that the guys are all horndogs. (Who knew?) If a blue collar Irish trope is omitted, it is not for want of trying.

On the way in, they assign a name tag, so you are easy pickens for the amusement of actor and audience alike. As we are settling in, they ask for a show of hands from all the Catholics. I asked if Episcopalians counted, and they dismissed me, loudly and without thought. Throughout the show they pulled audience members onto the stage, swinging from friendly and patient, to cheerfully disdainful. Raucous and rowdy and awash in high spirits. It’s marvelous how it seems like an authentic wake (not that I’d know) when clearly it isn’t. The good Father seems especially churlish (like Brother Theodore?) abusing audience improvisation with remarks like: Well, that was stupid, or What you were thinking? Why should we laugh at such jibes and taunts? It’s not caustic, perhaps just another patch in this joyfully ridiculous quilt.

Gotta give mad props to the cast and crew of Flanagan’s Wake and Allen Contemporary Theatre for taking the pulse, of these so often disappointing times. I was certainly trying my best to chase away those pesky, cold-hearted blues when I headed to ACT for a Saint Patrick’s Day matinee. Seems this preposterous, deadpan comedy, with it’s shameless use of puns, shaggy dog stories, improvisation and stereotypes (no one is spared, especially the Irish) was just the remedy I was aching for. Right about now I’m thinking we’re all famished for wisecracking merriment. Treat yourself to some playful comfort.

Allen Contemporary Theater presents Flanagan’s Wake, playing March 15th-31st, 2024. 1206 East Main Street #105, Allen, TX 75002. 844-822-8849. allencontemporarytheatre.net

A town that’s failing from a catastrophic accident at the local mines, is visited by a dapper, mysterious stranger. He finds himself persona non grata. Not a single empty bed for the night. Then somehow the other shoe drops, and the hotel owner recognizes him as a preeminent adventurous traveler. He’s been keeping the village’s spirits up, sending letters with vivid anecdotes and enthusiastic claims that their drinking water has magical healing powers. The people who live here are on the brink of destitution, and understandably, disconsolate. They are thrilled to actually meet him, and celebration breaks out. At first this guy insists they’re mistaken, but when he sees he can easily buy the town, he begins to play along.

Catching a show at Ochre House is like stepping into another realm. Their sensibility, their playful strangeness, their deadpan gags. Imagine a cat with three eyes that saunters around the neighborhood, completely relaxed and nonchalant. Imagine that nobody notices and/or cares. This is how it is with Ochre House. We have an inkling something’s off. It doesn’t call attention to itself, but it’s there. Through many years the visionary mind of Matthew Posey and his absurd, cheerfully defiant actors have been delighting and astonishing and mesmerizing audiences, with versatile and meticulous content. Some shows are more nuanced than others, some boisterous, some demented, some taciturn.

From time to time, Ochre House presents political allegory. Never obvious, it creates a narrative that off-handedly intersects with immediate issues that are skewering our lives. In This Town For Sale, a reasonably decent man keeps resisting the opportunity to appropriate a foundering community. Until he gets a taste of how easy it is to exploit the trust of those who lionize him. The deeper he sinks, the more his ethics are diminished. Before it’s over and done, he’s nearly unrecognizable from the guy that opens the story.

Over the years I have found perhaps some theaters in DFW that are consistently flawless, and The Ochre House is definitely one of them. Always surprising, original, subversive, fanciful and beguiling to the heart, brain and soul.

The Ochre House presented This Town for Sale, that played February 14th-March 2^nd, 2024. 825 Exposition Avenue, Dallas, Texas. 214-826-6273. ochrehousetheater.org