The lights come up on the living room of a family, where the mother (Stark) is bundled in a comforter. The home is comfortable, well lived in, somewhat cluttered. A bit downtrodden. There is the daughter (Hanky-Panky) the dad (JonJon) two sons (Manny and Charlie) and a daughter-in law (Ruby). Above the sofa is a window where an enormous, unsettling eye (God?) watches. The daughter comes home and talks with mom. The way she dresses is provocative. She and her mother inject heroin together. Then Manny arrives. There is tension between he and JonJon. Next Charlie and Ruby show up. They have been infected with Christian Nationalism, and Charlie has enlisted with something like ICE.
This family’s frank with one another, but not mean spirited. They have meager means, and try to roll with it, the best they can. They speak in a Shakespearean dialect: sentence structure mimics that of Shakespeare’s characters. The dialogue contrasts with class. Playwright Matthew Posey might be pointing to the dignity they bring to the world, or perhaps the suggestion that history is repeating. They are oppressed and destitute but not the outcry of frustration and rage we might ordinarily expect. They don’t squabble any more than most families. The interpersonal dynamic between them: JonJon and Ruby are playful and resigned, Hanky Panky and Mom get on, despite Mom’s lack of tact.
The tone of Opera Box is like Salvador Dali, the grotesque and puzzling taken as a given. Beneath the layer of the familiar and bizarre there deep despondency. Like Waiting For Godot the comical and dry lyricism are informed by disappointment and despair. It permeates. While Vladimir and Estragon wait incessantly for the foretold arrival, this family isn’t searching for answers. I don’t believe they are disingenuous, circumstances are closing in, but fighting gradual destruction feels pointless. When Charlie and Ruby declare the salvation they’ve found, they read as ridiculous, pathetic.
The enigmatic aspects of Opera Box are unsettling and sharp. The eye that appears with its freakish curiosity might be God, casually observing with no desire to intervene. Possibly it’s the privileged class, the characters in this tragedy acting out and singing deeper emotions for their entertainment. Sometimes characters appear in that same window, looking ghoulish and portentous. The son with the head the size of an elephant. The cyclone that Ruby cooks up in a dance of religious ecstasy.
Opera Box is low key. Consider lying on the beach, paralyzed, while the tide washes and creeps, until you drown. What Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil. Vindictiveness concealed by apathy. The wealthy ruining lives because they can. The buffoon that runs amok because no one will stop him. Matthew Posey’s nearly whispered allegory is delicate and terrifying. Something or someone is waiting to eat you alive.
The Ochre House presents Opera Box, playing September 3-September 20th, 2025. ASL Interpretation: Saturday, September 13th. 825 Exposition, Dallas, Texas. 214-826-6273. ochrehousetheater.org