Author: christophersoden@sbcglobal.net

Catherine and Jamie are a couple in New York. Catherine is an actor and Jamie is a novelist. Jamie is New York Jewish and Catherine is a Gentile from Ohio. As you might guess, The Last Five Years is a look backward on a marriage, a courtship, a relationship that doesn’t feel all that different from others, though it gives us details. Written and composed by Jason Robert Brown, it is a careful, warm, intelligent depiction of two souls connecting, with no explanation, per se, of why it didn’t last. Brown wants us to engage with the substance of Jamie and Catherine’s intersection, without getting caught in the trap of assigning blame or fixing on a crucial mistake.

Brown spins his narrative in the realm of recollection, but it doesn’t follow a straight path backwards. It hops around. An angry song after being abandoned on a birthday might be followed by a phone call from an agent, or nervous stream of thought while dressing for the wedding. Events are clustered to demonstrate joy in the depths of sadness or small disappointments that nonetheless leave their mark. By giving each equal (though distinct) emotional weight, the experience is consistently surprising, it confounds our expectations of linear logic. And certainly love so often suggests a more intuitive kind of reasoning?

Brown is unconventional in his approach to the music as well. With wry, quirky songs featuring “Catherine, the Shiksa Goddess,” or a crazy, goofy singing clock, or an audition that goes terribly wrong, he takes us to a milieu that feels fresh and rich with humanity. There are frustrated, persistently sad pieces that feel like pop arias, and elated, giddy pieces that feel playful. The instruments (cello, piano, guitar, violin, bass) are understated and contemplative, but not submissive or sketchy. Monique Abry and Seth Womack are inspired in this difficult show, with only two characters, and songs that are often long, meandering and introspective. (Considering the nature of this musical, this is, of course, perfectly appropriate.) Brown has written a wide spectrum of often nuanced emotions and Womack and Abry inhabit them with grace and precision. There are moments that bring us to excruciating grief, and others filled with nostalgia and regret. Abry and Womack invite us into this story of palpable warmth, rage and sorrow, without hesitation or facility. The Last Five Years feels so genuine, so on point. So focused.

Water Tower Theatre presents: The Last Five Years. Playing June 8^th – July 1^st, 2018. 15650 Addison Rd, Addison, Texas 75001. 972-450-6232. www.watertowertheatre.org.

Blake Hackler’s Enemies/People is a viscerally satisfying attempt to clarify and bolster Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, though somewhat extreme. I must state upfront, while I know the premise of this particular drama, I have never read or seen it performed. Thomas Stockman fights to stop the spread of poison through mineral baths. Those in power oppose him, as the baths would salvage their nearly destitute town. They exploit the ignorance of the masses, painting Stockman as elitist and subversive. The result is a polarization between altruism and survival instinct. Or maybe moral relativism and the need to prevent danger?

Hackler has set this parable of virtue and flawed character in present day Texas, in a city in danger of financial ruin. Stockman and his brother are both on the Board of Directors for a spa that could generate considerable revenue. On a hunch, Tom, goes to a scientist friend who discovers the water is tainted, probably due to fracking. Despite the warning to go slow, Tom gives a friend permission to release the information on a blog. The story gets media traction, and the fracas culminates to a heated debate in City Hall.

Hackler takes considerable pains to tie Enemies/People to current issues, including President # 45, blind loyalty, immigrant abuse and cultural permission to be narcissistic, racist and greedy. On the one hand it’s exhilarating and absorbing, on the other it does seem to go a bit overboard. At the outset Tom’s imperative seems obvious, but gradually layers of equivocation are added, his motives, judgment and past failures are tossed into the mix. Complications and/or tangential themes are introduced. Enemies/People never lacks for density and it moves quickly. It’s testy and intense.

Enemies/People begs comparisons between the original text and the show we’re watching. In voiceover reflection, the playwright describes Ibsen’s script as a sausagefest, i.e., no girls. [Can we not gauge relevance when the disenfranchised were denied a seat at the table?] Is Hackler suggesting because Ibsen depicted the actuality of his times, that he lacks insight? It’s not always easy to tell. Perhaps Hackler is embracing diversity to mock it, or suggesting the more we try, the more we resist evolution? Enemies/People raises compelling questions and there are times when Thomas seems fiercely, palpably heroic. I’m not sure though, that this version’s ambitious need to strive for contemporary context, equals the experience. That being said, Hackler’s Enemies/People is well worth your time.

Second Thought Theatre presents: Enemies/People playing June 13th-July 7th, 2018. Bryant Hall. 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd, Dallas, Texas 75219. 1-866) 811-4111. info@secondthoughttheatre.com

Isaac, a dishonorably discharged Marine, returns home to find his dad, Arnold, dressed in some grotesque version of drag, and virtually incoherent. His sister, Max, is in the process of transitioning from female to male. His mother, Paige (perky and menacing) is experiencing one epiphany after another, once she’s no longer constrained by traditional gender paradigms. Considering her supposed declaration of independence for all, she’s incredibly pushy and contentious. After a history of egregious abuse from her husband, she’s keeping him subservient through medication, and primitive female attired. For the purpose of humiliating him. [One of the 12 Labors of Hercules was very similar.] Whether or not you believe retaliation amounts to justice, you have to wonder why she doesn’t just kick him out, or slit his throat.

Hir (prounced “here”) feels like a black comedy of checks and balances. Isaac is the non-toxic version of virility and Max, the more nuanced version of gender transition. Paige seems enlightened, but the further we get, the more she uses cultural sea change as an excuse to torture, dominate and shame. Max might be a bit touchy, but ze’s not a bully. When Isaac arrives home, the house has succumbed to nearly utter chaos. If he tries to impart some order (for the sake of sanity) Paige won’t let him. Nearly all the conflict in Hir emerges from territorial bouts between Isaac and his mother.

Playwright Taylor Mac may be using imitative fallacy. Husband Arnold might very well have used housekeeping as means of subjugation, so it’s not unreasonable that Paige would reject it. That being said, she doesn’t want anyone else to do it, either. The characters struggle with gender identity, though on the face of it, Isaac seems most secure. He has no issues with Domestic Maintenance, and only interferes when Paige degrades his dad. In broader strokes, Arnold, Isaac, Max and Paige all represent different gender views. Arnold wielded the toxic version of manhood, while Isaac, though a marine, drove an ambulance. Paige is the sunshiney, albeit angry mom, while Max has found a way to navigate hir aggression. Isaac, Arnold and Max all fall somewhere along the “male” spectrum. Mac has created a perfect storm, conflicts arise when archetypes collide.

A successful play needn’t answer all the questions it raises, but it does need some kind of takeaway. With Hir, it’s hard to tell. Perhaps it’s: Solutions are impossible without compromise. Or: There is no one answer to conundrum. Perhaps Taylor Mac is stirring the pot. It’s like a recipe for food that doesn’t exist. In my experience, the problem has less to do with gender itself, then trying to define it with attributes. Maybe Mac understands that gender is an infinite mystery, and any attempt to fracture it by opposition is beside the point.

Stage West presents: Hir, playing My 17th-June 17^th, 2018. 821 West Vickery Blvd, Fort Worth, Texas 76104. (817) 784-9378. www.stagewest.org

Michael Marc Bouchard’s Lilies is a strange excursion. Exotic and refined. Obtuse and dark. Emerging from the staging of a play, depicting the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, Lilies feels a bit like catching butterflies blindfolded. Or watching the slow creation of a quilt, one patch at a time. Or hearing the same riddle, over and over. You really must focus. Father Saint-Michel teaches Drama for a Roman Catholic school and though he’s clearly devoted, the homoerotic undercurrent in his productions have enraged some of the parents. The two leads, Simon and Vallier, are clearly lovers, and Bilodeau (as a young man) reprimands them for their depraved behavior. The drama more or less polarizes between the ignorant and sophisticated, the gentle and judgmental. But not necessarily the way we might think.

At the beginning of Lilies a group of prisoners overtake Bishop Bilodeau and force him to watch a play, exposing an incident in 1912 that ruined Simon’s, Vallier’s and the lives of others. Bilodeau is invited to read his character’s part, but he refuses. The female characters are played by men, not convincingly, but there’s an element of sincerity and dedication that feels odd. As each character tells his or her story, we grasp the significance Saint Sebastian’s intense love for another man, and how the arrows flew when they lashed him to a tree. Bouchard doles out scraps of information, and often seems to leave the path altogether, though this narrative seems to turn on montage. There’s an undeniable dreamlike quality to Lilies, a kind of skewed logic that counter-intuitively seems to balance the otherworldly content.

Consider the intoxicating gestalt of Lilies. Men in drag capturing the essence of feminine fancy and yearning. A contemptuous kiss planted on the lips of a clueless homophobe. Cynicism as “cure” for desire. Repeated evocations of a hot air balloon on the horizon, on a mission to rescue you from an empty existence. The father who beats his son (out of love?) . The nurturing mother, trapped in fantasy. Teenage boys who are not just experimenting, but stuck on some kind of cusp. Numerous elements converge to draw us into a realm where tenderness is forbidden to men, where emotion and beauty are denied them. Bouchard floats us upon feathery clouds, but cottonmouths swim there, too. It’s nearly impossible to hang on plot, because of the play’s construction, but sometimes showing us the scaffolding is a sound strategy. The damage that comes from a toxic code of masculinity doesn’t happen in a vacuum, so Lilies shows us the gears and baffles beneath the surface. Do not miss this one of a kind experience.

Gordon Kelly & Robin Benson Linek present Lilies, playing through June v9th, 2018. Bath House Cultural Center. 521 E. Lawther Drive, Dallas, TX 75218. 817-886-0660.

Michael Marc Bouchard’s Lilies is a strange excursion. Exotic and refined. Obtuse and dark. Emerging from the staging of a play, depicting the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, Lilies feels a bit like catching butterflies blindfolded. Or watching the slow creation of a quilt, one patch at a time. Or hearing the same riddle, over and over. You really must focus. Father Saint-Michel teaches Drama for a Roman Catholic school and though he’s clearly devoted, the homoerotic undercurrent in his productions have enraged some of the parents. The two leads, Simon and Vallier, are clearly lovers, and Bilodeau (as a young man) reprimands them for their depraved behavior. The drama more or less polarizes between the ignorant and sophisticated, the gentle and judgmental. But not necessarily the way we might think.

At the beginning of Lilies a group of prisoners overtake Bishop Bilodeau and force him to watch a play, exposing an incident in 1912 that ruined Simon’s, Vallier’s and the lives of others. Bilodeau is invited to read his character’s part, but he refuses. The female characters are played by men, not convincingly, but there’s an element of sincerity and dedication that feels odd. As each character tells his or her story, we grasp the significance Saint Sebastian’s intense love for another man, and how the arrows flew when they lashed him to a tree. Bouchard doles out scraps of information, and often seems to leave the path altogether, though this narrative seems to turn on montage. There’s an undeniable dreamlike quality to Lilies, a kind of skewed logic that counter-intuitively seems to balance the otherworldly content.

Consider the intoxicating gestalt of Lilies. Men in drag capturing the essence of feminine fancy and yearning. A contemptuous kiss planted on the lips of a clueless homophobe. Cynicism as “cure” for desire. Repeated evocations of a hot air balloon on the horizon, on a mission to rescue you from an empty existence. The father who beats his son (out of love?) . The nurturing mother, trapped in fantasy. Teenage boys who are not just experimenting, but stuck on some kind of cusp. Numerous elements converge to draw us into a realm where tenderness is forbidden to men, where emotion and beauty are denied them. Bouchard floats us upon feathery clouds, but cottonmouths swim there, too. It’s nearly impossible to hang on plot, because of the play’s construction, but sometimes showing us the scaffolding is a sound strategy. The damage that comes from a toxic code of masculinity doesn’t happen in a vacuum, so Lilies shows us the gears and baffles beneath the surface. Do not miss this one of a kind experience.

Theatre Profile Productions presents Lilies, playing through June v9th, 2018. Bath House Cultural Center. 521 E. Lawther Drive, Dallas, TX 75218. 817-886-0660.

Arguably the quintessential saga of a fierce stage mother who vicariously tries to resolve her own issues, Gypsy holds up as well today, as when it premiered in 1959. Mama Rose takes her two daughters: Louise and June, on the road with a somewhat spectacular (if quaint) vaudeville act, doing their best to climb the ladder that leads to Broadway. June is dressed in ribbons, curls and taps, while Louise often wears the same costumes as the chorus boys. Early on, Rose convinces Herbie to be their agent, booking decent venues and living in cheap hotels; an extended makeshift family making the best of limited resources. Herbie and Rose are a couple (Rose is hesitant to marry after four previous failures). The troupe wanders all over the map, eventually reaching The Big Apple, and their opportunity to audition for The Great White Way. When June is offered an undeniably generous contract, Mama Rose shows her true colors.

It’s really not a flaw, but I always found it curious that while Gypsy ostensibly refers to Gypsy Rose Lee and her rise to fame as a sophisticated, clever, stripper, it’s not exactly about her. Louise’s transformation from self-effacing tomboy to a burlesque queen (brimming with saucy panache) is nothing short of phenomenal, and better yet, believable. But this musical by Laurents, Stine and Sondheim is undoubtedly the story of Mama Rose. Perhaps the original Tiger Mom? Touting an act headlining “Baby June”, chock full of kiddie kitsch, she muscles and shoves and cajoles, till she gets her way. There is nothing subtle about Mama Rose and she doesn’t take no for an answer. We understand that she has a fire in the belly, and her need to fulfill the talent she recognizes in her daughters. But Gypsy, filled with humor and unblinking chutzpah, makes plain the price Rose’s zeal and ambition takes on those she loves most. Gypsy is warm, but never sentimental, savvy but never cruel.

Director Derek Whitener (always a joy) has taken this demanding script and sculpted a brash, exhilarating experience. The story never bogs down, and the large, avid cast is poised, effusive and all too glad to share their enthusiasm. Whitener may have found the perfect balance for a show that embraces actuality, without losing optimism or copping to the sappy. Among these marvelous performers, Sara Shelby-Martin (Mama Rose) and Kimberly Pine (Louise) manage these difficult characters, shaking us up and stirring our spirits. Shelby-Martin is tough, self-possessed and poignant. Pine is astonishing in her versatility and verve. Mr. Whitener, it seems, could stage a lecture on The Life of The Bumble Bee and still have us cheering.

The Firehouse Theatre presents: Gypsy, playing May 31^st – June 17^th, 2018. 2535 Valley View Lane, Farmers Branch, Texas 75234. (972) 620-3747. www.thefirehousetheatre.com

Set in the French Insane Asylum of Charenton on July 13^th, 1808, 15 years to the day that Charlotte Corday assassinated Jean Paul Marat: The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade aka Marat/Sade was written by Peter Weiss and premiered in 1963. The Marquis (who coined the word “sadism”) is among the inhabitants of the asylum, and has decided to stage a reenactment of the famous, watershed event using the other patients as actors and musicians. Marat (a doctor, scientist and politician) was a vociferous social critic, during the French Revolution. Though he was supposedly a proponent of the impoverished, he advocated for a caste system and the September Massacres, in which 1200-1400 prisoners were summarily executed, lest they be freed and wreak havoc. Marat and the notorious philosopher, de Sade, debate politics, history and the nature of the human condition. Marat sits in his wooden tub, writing manifestos and pontificating, while soaking to alleviate a painful skin disease.

A mashup of absurdity, history, political rhetoric and menace, Marat/Sade demonstrates a problem that may stretch back further than we know. The privileged class drones on and on, making excuses, while tyranny, slaughter and starvation take hold. The asylum band plays wry, angry, boisterous songs and the inmates recite nursery rhymes and frolic, celebrating the ridiculous and utter lack of change. Like gorging on fine cuisine while a destitute mother begs in the street. The drama of Charlotte Corday’s heroism is recreated for Coulmier, the Hospital Director, and his wife and daughter. The patient playing Charlotte has the zombie-like mien of a junky, barely able to focus. The performers recite the couplets that advance the plot, avid and dutiful, bouncing around or assembling formations neater than a military parade. They seem driven by a nearly animatronic giddiness, flirting with but never quite losing control.

Directed by Bert Pigg, L.I.P. Service’s production is skillfully wrought, with risky choices. There’s contemporary music, such as Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire, slides documenting Fascism, Anarchy, protest, conflagration. Pigg ties content to the current unrest tearing our country to pieces. He orchestrates choreography, singing, merriment, invective. He digs in, building the terrifying milieu of insanity, rage, torture, playfulness, violence, endless political debate. You wouldn’t think such a chaotic melange would coalesce so gracefully, but Pigg carries it off, and the experience is stunning.

Many thanks to L.I.P. Service for permitting me to see Marat/Sade on closing weekend.

L.I.P. Service presented Marat/Sade at Amy’s Studio of Performing Arts, 11888 Marsh Lane, Suite 600, Dallas, TX 75234. 972-484-7900. www.lipserviceproductions.info

 

Like Bernard Pomerance’s Elephant Man and David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole, Jessica Cavanagh’s Self Injurious Behavior takes us into the minefield of wrenching, personal tragedy, without exploiting our emotions. Summer and Jake have a son named Benjamin, who falls along the autistic spectrum. He requires vigilance, patience and stamina. His meltdowns (for lack of a better word) are epic and exhausting. Summer is pushed beyond what anyone should be expected to endure, and reunites with sisters Harmony and Sage for a break, camping out at a Renaissance Faire Festival, kicking back and enjoying some serious downtime.

A thread of the fanciful informs Self Injurious Behavior. The image of Peter Pan (lost boys) the grownups gathering and giving themselves permission to play for a few days: Camping out, munching out, catching a buzz, dressing up in bright costumes, shouting Huzzah! Adults love to play! The realms of the fantastic and carelessness stand in high relief to the world where Summer must be constantly watchful, where she and Benjamin are so often be robbed of the simple joy of distraction.

Playwright Cavanagh details Summer’s Herculean struggles with compassion and humor. Her pain is not the sole focus, but it creeps up. The overwhelming sadness, frustration, guilt, despair. Cavanaugh explores Summer’s life apart from her interaction with Benjamin, too. We see how it affects her life so pervasively. The bond between mother and child is so primal and intuitive, sometimes the detachment needed isn’t easy to come by. Cavanagh also considers the effect of men who (however unconsciously indoctrinated) diminish and dismiss women, rather than validate the depth of their suffering. When Jake returns from touring and complains about Summer’s housekeeping, you want to crack his skull.

It would have been easy to use intense, melodramatic events to wring emotions from us, to take advantage of our sympathy. But instead Cavanagh finds the quiet, awful moments: the arrogance of Jake’s clueless new wife, asking her mother for help, confiding with her sisters in the midst of a dark patch. Self Injurious Behavior achieves poignancy by respecting us, giving us credit for intelligence and inference. Knowing that Jessica Cavanagh forged this masterful work from her own experience, just makes it that much more phenomenal. Her involvement never eclipses what the script needs to be.

Theatre Too presents the World Premiere of Self Injurious Behavior, playing May 17th-June 10^th, 2018. The Quadrangle : 2800 Routh Street, Suite 168, Dallas, Texas 75201. 214-871-3300. www.theatre3dallas.com

In 1940’s Paris, when Picasso was young and beginning to get recognition, he would visit the Lapine Agile (Agile Rabbit) and, in the fine tradition of watering holes all over the globe, proceed to resolve the problems of the world, with tobacco, liquor and vehement dialectic. You are insane, you charlatan! You’ve been tossing too much absinthe you swine! And so on. I confess I was leery of what I’d find when I attended Picasso at the Lapin Agile. In his heyday I positively adored Steve Martin’s patter, once waiting in line more than six hours to get tickets, but I wasn’t sure it would translate to the stage. To my delight, I discovered my doubts were unfounded. Martin’s Picasso at the Lapin Agile is a melange of erudition and goofiness, shtick and sophistication, philosophy and cynicism, star twinkle and bourbon.

Picasso at Lapine is a comedy to be sure, with eccentric characters and recurring punchlines, worldly insights and lovers’ pratfalls. Freddy and Germaine are romantically involved and the proprietors of this humble, yet vital gathering place for great minds and otherwise. Martin includes sketch comedy with truly marvelous fancies, debates on the nature of sentience, warm reflections on humanity, and facetious stuff that shouldn’t tickle (But damn it, it does!) Conceivably inspired by Terry Johnson’s Insignificance, but without the complications and dark undercurrent, Martin finds a cozy nest for his special brand of amusement, i.e. the world of Science, Imbibing and Art. Einstein and Picasso find great exhilaration in their arguments (piss and vinegar) that often result in awesome epiphany. Martin creates the expectation of spoofery and groanworthy gags, then throws other aspects into the mix, with poetic observations that will set your mind agog.

You might not wonder why “the agile rabbit” after seeing this poised, acrobatic, energetic and fluid cast at work. After enjoying theatre for many years I have learned that comedy requires balance more exacting than defusing an atomic bomb. the actors of Picasso at the Lapin Agile must navigate impulsive switches in tone, gender-bending, vaudeville, absurdity and cosmological musings, with no intermission and barely a pause. I am eternally grateful to have seen it on closing weekend.

Resolute Theatre Project presented Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Amy’s Studio of Performing Arts, 11888 Marsh Lane, Suite 600, Dallas, TX 75234

For those of you unacquainted with Billy Wilder’s classic of the same name, Sunset Boulevard tells the story of Norma Desmond, an erstwhile Silent Film Siren whose best days are behind her. Living as a virtual recluse in her lavish mansion with butler, Max, Norma is striking, and undeniably Non Compos Mentis: i.e. not in her right mind. Mistaking him for the man who was hired to bury her beloved chimp, Norma meets Joe Gillis. Joe is a down-at-the-heels screenwriter in 1950’s Hollywood. In addition to struggling to make a career, a couple of goons are tracking him to repay a loan shark. Joe is just this side of desperate. When Norma offers respite if he’ll help with her script, it’s just too good to resist.

Norma keeps Joe on a short leash, he must sneak off to visit his agent, friends, and Betty, a sweet gal with an inside track. She wants to help him get his big break. Joe is fond of Norma, but she doesn’t make it easy for him. She’s too loopy to be practical, and it’s clear she’s got a major crush on Joe. When she isn’t throwing tantrums. He works on her script in earnest, but never sees a dime. She throws a New Year’s Party, and when he realizes he’s the only guest, runs off to a friend’s celebration. Things have gotten twisted, but he stays out of sympathy, and perhaps for the advantages.

I have never been able to decide if Andrew Lloyd Webber writes operas that play like musicals, or musicals that feel operatic. He can be clever and amusing, the numerous songs show versatility, intelligence and warmth. Webber never makes Norma the object of pity, though she seems to swing a wide arc between rage and desperate frailty. Sunset Boulevard paints a mural, evoking the unforgiving world Joe and Norma inhabit, making it easy to understand when they wind up in each others’ arms. There is certainly something eerie about her mansion that could just as easily be a museum (or mausoleum). But when Norma slips into a reverie about the oafish world and how it’s robbed the motion pictures of magic and power, you can’t ignore the truth of her words. Sunset Boulevard is a strange potion of extreme measures and what happens when there’s sparse kindness in a merciless town.

Sunset Boulevard is an engaging, often humorous, sorrowful experience that is masterful and meticulously staged. The actors are deeply invested, focused, charismatic. Director Allen Walker has gone with a less lavish set, but you’d hardly know. Walker has orchestrated the various elements, with grace and purpose. I was spellbound from start to finish.

Tarrant Actors Regional Theatre presents Sunset Boulevard, playing May 11th-27th, 2018. Fort Worth Community Arts Center: Sanders Theatre. 1300 Gendy Street, Fort Worth, Texas 76107. (682) 231-0082. wwwthetart.com