Author: christophersoden@sbcglobal.net

As we hunkered down to make the best of enhanced family time and/or solitude, The Firehouse Theater came to our rescue with Taylor Mercado Owens’ Curiouser. Directed by Olivia Grace Murphy, Curiouser is a smart and quirky gloss on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, conceived as a Zoom Class, with all the constraints and opportunities that venue implies. The brainchild of a Master Class offered by Firehouse, Curiouser finds us in the midst of Ms. Selmon’s English Class, where the students are up in arms, because they’re expected to process the Lewis Carroll classic, despite the way it flagrantly flouts comprehensible narrative. It doesn’t make any sense! they wail, as their dedicated teacher tries to explain that perhaps this is the point.

Alicia, one of the more engaged scholars, defends Selmon’s choice before she dozes off, waking to discover she’s adrift in Alice’s same predicament. Familiar scenario’s emerge. She’s trapped in a room too large and too small, she queries a contentious (though jovial) Cheshire Cat, she attends a tea-party with guests such as The Dormouse, The Mad Hatter and The March Hare. And wouldn’t you know, each one of these strange characters bear a resemblance to Alicia’s classmates. They have lost their grasp of even the most undeniable details of the actual. Sound familiar?

Director Murphy (who brings an impressive list of credits) shows great facility in adapting Owen’s adaptation to the nether realm of the Zoom Platform. The young cast of Curiouser makes this story their own, bringing their personal traits to the production, under the skillful guidance of Ms. Murphy. Curiouser was delightful and filled with ingenuity, shaping Carroll’s twilight zone to a plot that perhaps might alleviate our shared predicament, if only we can can roll with ourongoing challenges, resisting frustration and perplexity.

Cast: Alicia: Marla Acevedo, Teacher/ Storyteller: Holli Selmon, Rabbit/ Duck/ #3/ Knave: Karl Lewis, Caterpillar/ Student 1/ Door 1/ #5: Savannah Elayyach, Cheshire Cat/ Student 2/ Door 2: Patrick Bilbow, March Hare/ Cake/ #7: Jenna Williamson, Mad Hatter/ Bottle/ #9: Brenna Stewart, Dormouse/ Door 3/ Dodo: Lyric Knight, Queen/ Student 3/ Pigeon: Tonya Wilson Shaw, King/ Student 4/ Mouse: Quentin Maese.

From the first time I attended a show by IMPRINT Theatreworks, I could tell they were exceptional in most every way. They went out of their way to make the audience feel welcome during the curtain speech. They chose unorthodox content. They were palpably exhilarated and you could feel it. Founder Ashley White, et al were possessed of a sweetness, an authenticity, a radiance that tickled your spine like a lightning rod. After that I always looked upon those opening nights with loopy anticipation.

I daresay this pandemic has been something worse than a buzzkill and something less than a catastrophe. But based upon my previously sublime experience with IMPRINT I was stoked (albeit curious) to see how this intrepid theatre troupe would tackle 45’s onslaught on live entertainment. I needn’t have worried. Raise You Up! was a musical revue brimming with earnest warmth and cunning ingenuity, designed to appeal to our shared humanity as performers, artists, technicians, “creators” and lovers of the Arts. IMPRINT has always shown thoughtfulness and respect to everyone involved in making a show a success, including those in the seats. And they’ve always had a knack for dealing in the currency of enthusiasm.

Rise you up! Interlaced off the cuff, yet poignant testimonials to how the recent crisis has brought us together. Unlike the PSA’s we’re subjected to on television, that suggest conundrums and impractical slogans, Raise You Up! seemed to come from a place of down to earth, jovial, anecdotal wisdom that felt therapeutic and helpful. There were musical numbers that involved the entire company, a clever tongue-in-cheek sendup of Kander and Ebb’s “Cell Block Tango” (by way of Henry VIII’s Six Wives) a turbulent cover of Morisette’s “You Oughtta Know”, and numerous other pieces including rock and roll from Lizzie! (their past musical of the life of Lizzie Borden) Murder Ballad, Bring Him Home and Ghost Quartet.

Like past productions of IMPRINT Theatreworks, Raise You Up! never lacked for audacity, energy, professionalism and craft. IMPRINT always gives 200% and they have a gift for making us feel jazzed, surprised, for stirring up our molecules. They are so dedicated to giving us the best they can muster, yet they are crisp while avoiding the slickness of theaters with deeper pockets. And how could you not be delighted by their cast of 20+ actors, singers, musicians…? I came away with a profound sense of gratitude, and appreciation for the warmth and humanity they offer, every time they raise the curtain, and invite us into their realm of the miraculous and beguiling.

Trust Prism Movement Theatre to have the vision and eclat to cook up an ingenious show like Everything Will Be Fine, in the midst of a pandemic. Conceived to function effectively outdoors in a drive-in setting (stay in your car and crank the radio) Everything considers living through a cultural crisis, with no definite end in sight. It opens with two young lovers writing their wedding vows. What follows is a series of events that reflect on the sublime and catastrophic. The painful and resourceful. Prism might have done this differently. Ignoring, for instance the virulent plague that makes precautions crucial. But no, the performers wear their masks, and strangely enough, we nearly forget they have them on.

Prism has a splendid, marvelous history of creating narrative through breathless, vivid motion. The bodies of the dancers stir the space they occupy, brimming with luminous, jazzy energy. I expect they describe their aim as movement to suggest something less formal than dance. In Persephone and a later piece that explored the romance between Medea and Jason before they fled the island of Colchis; there was inventiveness, a genius for amplifying ordinary objects or throwing shadows or animating the static. Speaking as but a troglodyte (when it comes to articulating the experience of dance) I was swoony and agog as they cultivated a canny, giddy sense of wonder. The spontaneity and weightlessness they summoned as if calling upon water nymphs and spirits of air.

Prism, certainly, did all they could to enhance this outdoor show, guiding us into our parking spaces and handing out swag bags with sanitizer, sidewalk chalk, lip balm and programs, et al. The cast (Kelsey Milbourn, Mitchell Stephens, Ania Lyons, Rai K. Barnard, Kwame Lilly, Lauren Floyd, Rico Kartea) emerged from a circle of cars, and headlights served to deepen and complicate the action. There was intimacy and revelry and grief. There was nonsense and danger. How can these limber, avian creatures flirt so flagrantly with gravitational pull? The title: Everything Will Be Fine is both naive and disingenuous. The characters keep moving forward, despite tragedy, but the loftier wisdom seems to suggest that our lives are profound grace, even when we must deal with loss. The spindle continue to turn, ecstasy mixing with devastation.

I want to express my gratitude to Prism Movement Company, for their grand hospitality and kind accommodation. They went out of their way to make me (and the rest of the audience) feel welcome, in these chaotic, mend-bending times. How difficult it must have been, to rise above our present ordeal, and nurture our famished souls with intelligent, overwhelming, defiant moxie.

Prism Movement Theatre: Everything Will Be Fine. Written by Zoe Kerr. Directed by Kwame Lilly and Jeff Colangelo. Dance Choreography by: Kwame Lilly. www.prismco.org. (407) 766-9368. prism.movement.theater@gmail.com

Based on playwright Doug Wright’s interviews with Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf. I Am My Own Wife is an account of a man (Lothar Berfelde) who adopted a female identity, and survived the Nazi Occupation and Communist Regimes. Living in Berlin. Charlotte was virtually open in her vocation. She didn’t conceal her woman’s attire, though you wouldn’t call her flagrant. Somewhere around the same time that Lothar discovered his cousin and advocate, he was to survive baptism by volcano. Lothar’s female cousin enjoyed dressing in men’s clothing, and she sensed he was drawn to frocks. He lived with a violent father, who forced him to join the Hitler Youth. Trapped in a deadly confrontation, he beat his dad to death with a rolling pin, at the age of 16.

It’s safe to say Charlotte subsisted at the hub of German counterculture. Doug wright treats her with respect in this one-man show, never depicting her as an eccentric little dowager or volatile harridan. She ran a small museum that featured household items from a time in German history that was long gone. The Grunderzeit. She acquired many objects and items left over from the expulsion of the Jews, though she was definitely not Antisemitic. She loved listening to music but never owned a television. She ran what might be described as a queer bar and dance club, from the basement of the mansion where the museum was housed. Esteemed artists, writers, gays, lesbians and other bohemians gravitated to Charlotte’s notorious hotspot.

Wright takes a risk by exploring Charlotte’s moral ambivalence. She was revered by many for her unapologetic queer values but condemned by others for accusations of collaborating with secret police. I Am My Own Wife makes it clear that Charlotte’s “degeneracy” put her at risk with totalitarian rule and subsequently, a perfect candidate for cooperation. On the other hand, by presenting an unresolved quandary, and details of a phenomenal, genteel, yet fierce human being, Wright does her justice, despite her flaws. Considering her excruciating ordeals, Charlotte persevered where many of us might have crumbled.

Ashley Puckett Gonzales directs Bob Hess in this demanding performance. He portrays Charlotte, the playwright, the playwright’s best friend, the cousin… et al. The range and depth of Hess’ emotional expression is remarkable. Nuanced yet emphatic, sublime yet stricken, Hess is gripping and touching in a role that isn’t histrionic; he submerges us in a life of a tacit desperation. Hess creates a lady of unorthodox valor, who doesn’t grasp her own heroism, but sees her choices (for good or ill) as simple pragmatism. Mr. Hess brings an exquisite, exhilarating ear to language that made Charlotte Von Mahlsdorf who she was. There’s no judgment or bias, but the brilliance of an actor who gives himself over to painful radiance.

Here’s how to watch: 1. I Am My Own Wife will be available for streaming via video on demand between July 16 – August 2. 2. To watch, simply purchase a ticket on our website for this on demand event. You will receive a link and code by email within 24 hours that you can use to access the video at your leisure, at any time during the run dates. 3. Questions? More information is available on our website here.

info@watertowertheatre.org

www.watertowertheatre.org

972.450.6232.

Matt Cox’s Puffs, is a smart, whimsical spoof on J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. It follows the lives of the key characters: Harry, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley (by different names) and their adventures at Hogwarts. Hogwarts is a private school for witches and wizards. Clearly this saga goes far too long to fit into a traditional play, so it’s basically a gloss. Hogwarts engages many of the same customs as a traditional British Private School, different houses that compete, yearly exams, and regular sporting events. At Hogwarts it’s Qidditch, with two teams facing off on broomsticks.

It emerges right away that the members of the Puffs House include Harry, Hermione, Ron, and a band of assorted underdogs. This is the premise from which Cox fashions his satire on the tropes and familiar plot devices of Potter’s odyssey. Cox avoids what might be considered cheap shots at Potter and his misfits. They’re never depicted as losers or nebbishes, but rather, good-hearted teens who can’t catch a break. Puffs plays like sketch comedy, taking occasional excursions into the unlikely, the same way we laugh when Sue Ann Niven rotates on a circular bed, beneath a mirrored ceiling. Cox takes sweet-natured jibes at the various characters We may laugh at the villains, but never our hero(es). It’s like the send-ups they used to write for Mad Magazine. Cursory in the best sense of the word. Whatever the jokes were, you couldn’t take them too seriously. Whether their target was The Sound of Music, Mod Squad or Dragnet, first last and always, it was about the gags.

Directors Kyle Igneczi and Ashley White handle the merriment with skill and agility. Episodes and bits move at a brisk pace, orchestrating punchlines, blackouts and rejoinders with aplomb. The multitudinous cast (Billy Betsill, Micah JL Brooks, Savannah Elayyach, Alli Franken, Edna Gill, Nick Haley, Damian Gomez, Madeline Morris, Taylor Staniforth, Juliette Talley, Aaron White, Mark Oristano) is nimble and poised as a bus filled with zippy gymnasts. Or a barrel full of convivial ferrets.

Puffs is a clever show, with lots to tickle aficionados of Harry Potter, the orphan kept in a pantry by his Aunt and Uncle, beaten down until he discovers he has remarkable, supernatural gifts, and parents who died, saving his life. In every volume he does his time as a pariah, going from champion to the object of scorn. Cox takes the story of a lonely boy, who goes on to forge amazing, lifelong friendships (but not without adversity) and gives us gobs of amusement and glee.

IMPRINT Theatreworks staged Puffs in January 2020. www.Imprinttheatreworks.org

Matt Cox’s Puffs, is a smart, whimsical spoof on J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. It follows the lives of the key characters: Harry, Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley (by different names) and their adventures at Hogwarts. Hogwarts is a private school for witches and wizards. Clearly this saga goes far too long to fit into a traditional play, so it’s basically a gloss. Hogwarts engages many of the same customs as a traditional British Private School, different houses that compete, yearly exams, and regular sporting events. At Hogwarts it’s Qidditch, with two teams facing off on broomsticks.

It emerges right away that the members of the Puffs House include Harry, Hermione, Ron, and a band of assorted underdogs. This is the premise from which Cox fashions his satire on the tropes and familiar plot devices of Potter’s odyssey. Cox avoids what might be considered cheap shots at Potter and his misfits. They’re never depicted as losers or nebbishes, but rather, good-hearted teens who can’t catch a break. Puffs plays like sketch comedy, taking occasional excursions into the unlikely, the same way we laugh when Sue Ann Niven rotates on a circular bed, beneath a mirrored ceiling. Cox takes sweet-natured jibes at the various characters We may laugh at the villains, but never our hero(es). It’s like the send-ups they used to write for Mad Magazine. Cursory in the best sense of the word. Whatever the jokes were, you couldn’t take them too seriously. Whether their target was The Sound of Music, Mod Squad or Dragnet, first last and always, it was about the gags.

Directors Kyle Igneczi and Ashley White handle the merriment with skill and agility. Episodes and bits move at a brisk pace, orchestrating punchlines, blackouts and rejoinders with aplomb. The multitudinous cast (Billy Betsill, Micah JL Brooks, Savannah Elayyach, Alli Franken, Edna Gill, Nick Haley, Damian Gomez, Madeline Morris, Taylor Staniforth, Juliette Talley, Aaron White, Mark Oristano) is nimble and poised as a bus filled with zippy gymnasts. Or a barrel full of convivial ferrets.

Puffs is a clever show, with lots to tickle aficionados of Harry Potter, the orphan kept in a pantry by his Aunt and Uncle, beaten down until he discovers he has remarkable, supernatural gifts, and parents who died, saving his life. In every volume he does his time as a pariah, going from champion to the object of scorn. Cox takes the story of a lonely boy, who goes on to forge amazing, lifelong friendships (but not without adversity) and gives us gobs of amusement and glee.

IMPRINT Theatreworks staged Puffs in January 2020. www.Imprinttheatreworks.org

Surprisingly sophisticated for an incipient feature film, Rapture in Blue is a psychosexual thriller, written and directed by accomplished local actor, Ryder Houston. Rapture in Blue explores the discrepancy between the life that Jason Aylwood (Bryce Lederer) has chosen, and where his true desires lie. Jason is dating Valerie (Sarah Greenfield) and decides to take her to his childhood home. There they discover a guy named Sebastian (Tanner Garmon) who’s still in the process of moving in, when Jason slips his key into the front door lock. The two have barely recovered from their surprise when he invites them in. Sebastian is that most dangerous of men, fetching and unapologetically rapacious. Not that he does anything wildly inappropriate, but his eyes and demeanor tell a different story.

After Jason and Valerie make their departure, things between them start to unravel. Intimate Polaroids taken by an apparent stalker are turning up. Jason catches glimpses of some ghastly, terrifying phantom. Lovemaking attempts between he and Valerie feel forced and vapid. Jason seems to be repeatedly pulled into some kind of intensely disturbing fugue state. Some force beyond his control is tormenting him, playing havoc with his sanity.

There is something deliciously audacious at work in Rapture in Blue. From the outset, with a quote by Sigmund Freud, referencing the id (or shadow self) Houston sets up the dynamic lurking at the core of this eerie, yet enticing story. The id is the part of us that emerges and manifests our most repressed attractions. For all the progress mankind has made, there are still people who treat the queer community with contempt and aggression. Does his intersection with Sebastian trigger an unsettling epiphany for Jason? Do the visions intruding on Jason’s psyche evoke his worst fears? When Rapture playfully raises the assertion no lover wants to hear: It’s not you, it’s me, the duplicity isn’t lost on us. Yes it is Jason, and it isn’t.

Rapture has a purposeful, if trippy visual style. It falls somewhere on the continuum between the cunning of Nicholas Roeg and the gauziness of Robert Altman. Houston cleaves less to verisimilitude than phantasmagoria. There’s a tenuous tether to actuality, but just barely. Poor Jason has entered a place in his unconscious that refuses to play nice with the life he’s embraced. But only because he knew no differently. There may be some missteps, here and there, but Ryder Houston’s Rapture in Blue portends a future of cinematic odyssey that’s gripping, beguiling and implacable. The best filmmakers know how to gloriously mess with our minds, while remaining enjoyable. I’m thinking this describes Mr. Houston.

Available for streaming May 1st on Amazon Prime Video.

Mrs. Haggardly opens with three ladies sitting on thrones. Various comparisons come to mind. The Fates. The Gorgons. The Weird Sisters. A Tribunal. Two of them (Mrs. Haggardly and Madam Pigslips) are dowagers, one much younger (Mrs. Busybottom) a war widow. They wear elaborate gowns, gobs of makeup and enormous, turgid wigs, reminiscent of the aristocracy that fell to the French Revolution. The fact that these pretentious, arrogant, vindictive ladies are played by men, only adds to the grotesque air of decadence that suffuses this sardonic satire. (Gender mockery is a persistent thread.) These three run an orphanage for children who would seem to be casualties of war, emotionally and behaviorally speaking. One of their charges sits on a high stool, wearing a dunce cap. Johnny Rumsrunner, a kid who managed to escape, is a constant source of consternation

The Ochre House has a genius for cultivating a tangible sense dread (at least for me). Once I cross their threshold I hold my breath, convinced something unsettling is about to happen. This is not a bad thing. Ochre House has never stooped to crass shock appeal, or gratuitous mayhem. I savor knowing that anything can happen, and it’s always earned. Most of the characters in Mrs. Haggardly seem to suffer from one kind of deterioration or another: caricatures that explicate yet deprecate the glorification of battle.

Matthew Posey (playwright and director) and his intrepid troupe of remarkable artisans submerge us in a netherworld of buffered rage and throttled grief. I kept wondering if  Mrs. Haggardly was a rejoinder to Mother Courage (who for all her pragmatic chicanery, was merely trying to survive) while the despotic ladies of the orphanage reek of rapacious cruelty. The songs, composed by Justin Locklear, with titles like The Orphan God Forgot, Death Calls Merrily, and Ashes, have a searching and trance-like quality, often steeped in irony.

Mrs. Haggardly takes us into a realm that where you might as easily find The Red Queen, The Mad Hatter and The Jabberwocky. Matthew Posey’s peerless at fashioning mindscapes that function autonomously, gleefully engaged in their own perverse, yet consistent logic. The pathos is genuine, the camp a thing of excessive beauty, the tragedy a fraud and the monsters poised to jump from under your bed. Mrs. Haggardy is a rich, layered, detailed allegory of men’s ridiculous obsession with warfare. Don’t miss it.

“Even in these crazy times, Ochre House Theater is still here! Beginning Friday, April 3rd through April 24th, we will have Mrs. Haggardly, written and directed by Artistic Director Matthew Posey, available for streaming via the provided link. In the meantime, subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon for notifications! See Mrs. Haggardly once again, and if you haven’t seen it, now’s your chance!”

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT3anawUGNECyoRQsrVRZbg

 

 

Second Thought Theatre always keeps you guessing. They never repeat themselves. A gifted pianist haunted by the ghost of his sister. A family of men who are supposedly evolved when it comes to gender equality. A devoted couple who find a psychotropic that wields uncontrolled empathy. A hip-hop version of Much Ado About Nothing. A teenage religious zealot who terrifies students and faculty, at an upscale private school. And so on. Their astonishing litany is exhilarating. Second Thought wants to challenge, engage, terrify, amuse, appall, delight. They want drag us down one rabbit hole after another, and the results are a grace to those who cherish theatre.

Mlima is a revered, magnificent elephant. He addresses us directly, discussing his wise grandmother and her advice. He describes his culture and community. Next we see poachers stalking Mlima. They’re the kind of hunters who would use a sledgehammer to kill a flea. They murder Mlima, though they realize his austerity will make fencing his ivory tusks very difficult. What follows is a series of transactions, characterized by shadiness, corruption, bribery and fear. Mlima’s ghost is there for each step, bearing witness to the desecration of his body. Even the most avaricious among the smugglers, officials, curators and seafaring captains respect Mlima, a majestic pachyderm that is elder to them all. They understand that by trading in his ill-gotten tusks, they are jarring the karmic balance, and inviting calamity and chaos. In the final sequence, when the tusks are unveiled in the home of wealthy, insipid collectors (with no reverence for the exquisite beast) a cry of infinite grief erupts.

Written by Lynn Nottage, Mlima’s Tale invites us into a realm of phenomenal, canny worship. The elements (such as rain and teeming nightfall) are characters too, in a cosmos without the noise of industry and urban sprawl. The music provided by Nigel Newton is precise and evocative, with its bony percussion and eerie notes. What might have been a precious narrative from another country, becomes a stunning, simple indictment of those obsessed with acquisition and opulence. Nottage mixes gravity and humor, with a savvy eye to the egregious audacity of humanity. Mlima’s Tale has a cunning for grasping forces like awe, death, adoration and insolence and making them palpable in the midst of of homosapien folly.

I got this review out far too late, and I am an oaf.

Second Thought Theatre presented Mlima’s Tale that closed March 14^th, 2020. 3400 Blackburn St, Dallas, Texas 75219. (866) 811-4111. secondthoughttheatre.com

I need to start this review on a personal note. I grew up in a household with a distant dad, two older sisters, and a diligent mother. My mama was/is nothing short of heroic. She divorced when it was frowned upon, after 25 years of trying to make a bellicose marriage work. She earned as much as any woman could at the time. She made sacrifices I cannot begin to imagine, to give us what we needed to succeed and protect me, her bi-polar son, from a world I didn’t understand. I am 200% behind the #metoo movement, and loathe the condescension, misogyny, marginalizing and oppression women must endure daily, in the midst of a toxic patriarchy. If I turned into a woman tomorrow, I wouldn’t last a day. Or I’d invest in a Louisville Slugger and crack some skulls.

Kate Hamill’s stage adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, is an episodic gloss that extols the now familiar, nearly ubiquitous story of the March women. It is in some ways, ingenious. For instance, Hamill’s device of revisiting Jo March’s play with her male, caricatured, male uber-villain, is intriguing and efficient. Sarah Rasmussen’s direction is crisp and pointed, navigating a somewhat distilled attempt to cover a lot of material purposefully, hitting the high notes, and paying close attention to turning points. The cast (Jennie Greenberry, Pearl Rhein, Maggie Thompson, Lilli Hokama, Louis Rheyes McWillians, Sally Nystuen Vahle, Liz Mikel, Alex Organ, Mike Sears, Andrew Crowe) is able, strong and versatile, often shifting gears to keep up with seachanges and the brisk pace. Hamill preserves vivid details of the period, from diction to dishes to (naturally) cultural constraints. I wonder what the experience might be for someone coming to this drama for the first time, with no other context?

In some ways the struggles of the March sisters culminate in the rebellious Jo March, whose anger is focused and heartbreaking. The others, Meg, Amy and Beth, must deal with their own challenges. The never-ending demands of motherhood, financial survival and attachment to men, the cost of charitable sacrifice. As Jo continues to fight the battles that injustice demands, the other three must make their own hard choices. Anyone familiar with the story knows the excruciating incident in which Laurie is disappointed by Jo’s response to his proposal.. She cherishes him, but it’s not the kind of love he feels for her. Alcott, in her bold exploration of role reversal, depicts the painful ordeal of choosing what we’re told we should want, and forfeiting something just as splendid. The fact that Jo may be the stronger one on this occasion, makes her no happier.

Though Dallas Theater Center’s production of Little Women was inventive, salient, forceful, poignant (in some ways) and very, very smart, I found myself frustrated and disappointed in its conception. We have reached a glorious point in American history, when the revelation of systemic male exploitation and abuse of women, is finally there for all to see. Much of the victim shaming and celebrity leveraging has been called into serious question, and it’s about fucking time. I’ve seen DTC’s Little Women celebrated as feminist and the queer interpretation of Josephine’s character, and I celebrate those too. Honestly. But then I ask myself, when Alcott wrote Little Women, wasn’t it always feminist? Wasn’t Jo always queer, whether in sexual identity or politics or both? Isn’t the undeniable presence of this ideology, this fighting spirit sufficiently evinced in the lives of the March women, without the need to enhance it? Especially to the detriment of the content as a whole?

Why diminish the roles of Marmy, the father, Aunt March, et al? I don’t think the father spoke a single line. I get that Hamill finds ways to include key details. But I missed the scenes where Marmy confides her doubts, Amy explains her limited choices, Aunt March makes it clear that she understands why Jo is the way she is. Of course, none of these are fatal flaws. I want to say, unequivocally, there is much to recommend this show. I completely respect every production’s desire to put their own shape and identity to a particular piece. But it’s too bad that they’ve taken a story they describe as “timeless” (exactly) and make it something it doesn’t need to be.

The Dallas Theater Center presents Little Women, playing February 7^th, March 1^st, 2020. 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd. Dallas, Texas 75219. 214-522-8499 or www.DallasTheaterCenter.org