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 2nd, 2024. 825 Exposition Avenue, Dallas, Texas. 214-826-6273. ochrehousetheater.org