Author: christophersoden@sbcglobal.net

 

Billed as The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, Hair was written By Gerome Ragni and James Rado with music by Galt McDermott. It premiered off-Broadway, October 17^th, 1967 at Joseph Papp’s Public Theater then, Broadway on April 1968. With parallels to our present political situation, it was a protest against the Vietnam War, the Draft, oppression of Gay Rights, Women’s Rights, Black Rights. The Hippie Movement was gaining traction, pitching the Bohemian Lifestyle: polyamoros, adventurous sex, unconditional love, bliss of hallucinogenics, tolerance for alternative lifestyle, and an overall rejection of Middle-Class values.

The content inspired the structure. Such as it was/is. If shows like Godspell and Pippin featured cast members interacting with the audience and cast climbing scaffolds and perching willy-nilly onstage, for most of the show, Hair did it first. Hair embraced an unencumbered ideology. Minimal sets, nonchalant dialogue, casual attitude, childlike shenanigans. It does raise serious issues like the draft, apathy, social injustice. By and large the songs carry the heavy lifting, some of it compassionate and deeply touching, others facetious. They add gravitas and poignance to a narrative that sometimes swings wide. Hair’s salient impetus, it’s stock in trade,is jubilant, cosmic, joie de vivre’. When they encourage us to claim our destiny as bright shiners, when it wields nothing but radiance, we believe it. We believe the frissons along our spines, the nuanced rapture.

I do not envy director Brian Harden (aka Claude) who coordinated this enormous cast of raucous rapscallions. This menagerie of maniacal monkeys. Sometimes when they sing as a group it seems like small, earnest children. Caught up in the moment. Other times it’s like the ridiculous fun of drinking with friends, and you all spontaneously break into song. It just feels right.

Arts Mission Oak Cliff presents Hair: playing September 11-27^th, 2025. The last three performances are Thursday-Saturday of this week, curtain at 7:30. AMOC (Arts Mission Oak Cliff) is a converted church. 410 S. Windomere, Dallas, TX, United States, Texas 75208. 469-262-0465.

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 20^th, 2025. ASL Interpretation: Saturday, September 13^th. 825 Exposition, Dallas, Texas. 214-826-6273. ochrehousetheater.org

Maude and Gloria are en route from London to Scotland, on the occasion of Gloria’s marriage to Christy. Maude (Gloria’s Aunt) and Gloria are from London, urbane and used to finer things. Maude is none too pleased with the arrangement, perhaps she feels her niece could have done better. She’s not thrilled with the destination for the wedding. Christy greets the two, accompanied by John. John is the house manager and a family friend. Christy, in effect, John’s ward. As soon as Gloria and Christy reunite, they’ve got moves that would make acrobats proud, and they’re not coming up for air. As arrangements proceed, Maude is not exactly the ideal house guest. She seems to think her custodial duties entitle her to weigh in on every decision. In her defense, Scottish customs might feel, uh, a bit exotic. But c’mon. It isn’t polite to forbid kilts and bagpipes at a Scottish wedding.

From here, things take a turn. A friend has put up a baby girl for adoption and Gloria is dead set. The friend lives in San Francisco and what with one thing and another, John and Maude must make the journey to the Colonies, dealing with the paperwork, legalities and procedures and proper care for the wee lass. To say they squabble over everything is like saying boxers love to cuddle. Things only escalate when they’re subjected to close proximity.

Ken Ludwig is the theatre world’s dream. His first two hits were Lend me a Tenor and Crazy for You. He has written 34 plays and musicals; won Tonys, Drama Desk, and Laurence Olivier Awards (among others). Many of his pieces are popular in repertory, and it’s easy to see why.

Ludwig takes what might be considered traditional plots and does so much more than we might expect.

Be My Baby premiered at Houston’s Alley Theatre in 2005, starring Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter. It takes the crazy, impetuous young lovers, but makes the husband reserved. Then he takes the feuding “in-laws”, but their animosity isn’t always played for amusement. The comedy of Be My Baby is decidedly more organic. Similar to Neil Simon, there are moments of despair and anger, that make the humorous episodes only that much funnier. It’s so much more effective than scripts that turn on the laff machine. Be My Baby is more sophisticated by far. More polished and original and absorbing.

Rachael Lindley directs a brilliant and versatile cast. Be My Baby has a demanding script, not dealing in stock characters, taking unexpected directions. The performances are invariably intriguing and authentic. Ivy Opdyke as Maude is touching and surprising, harried but gradually tender and affectionate. Her warmth is truly memorable. Matt Gunther as John, is contentious and testy, his tortured predicament at once hilarious and charming. When we see his softer side, it’s nearly a shock, but his humanity is vibrant and nuanced.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents: Be My Baby, playing August 8th-31st, 2005. 518 West Arapaho Road, Suite 113, Richardson, Texas, 75080. 972-699-1130. richardsontheatrecentre.net

 

Maude and Gloria are en route from London to Scotland, on the occasion of Gloria’s marriage to Christy. Maude (Gloria’s Aunt) and Gloria are from London, urbane and used to finer things. Maude is none too pleased with the arrangement, perhaps she feels her niece could have done better. She’s not thrilled with the destination for the wedding. Christy greets the two, accompanied by John. John is the house manager and a family friend. Christy, in effect, John’s ward. As soon as Gloria and Christy reunite, they’ve got moves that would make acrobats proud, and they’re not coming up for air. As arrangements proceed, Maude is not exactly the ideal house guest. She seems to think her custodial duties entitle her to weigh in on every decision. In her defense, Scottish customs might feel, uh, a bit exotic. But c’mon. It isn’t polite to forbid kilts and bagpipes at a Scottish wedding.

From here, things take a turn. A friend has put up a baby girl for adoption and Gloria is dead set. The friend lives in San Francisco and what with one thing and another, John and Maude must make the journey to the Colonies, dealing with the paperwork, legalities and procedures and proper care for the wee lass. To say they squabble over everything is like saying boxers love to cuddle. Things only escalate when they’re subjected to close proximity.

Ken Ludwig is the theatre world’s dream. His first two hits were Lend me a Tenor and Crazy for You. He has written 34 plays and musicals; won Tonys, Drama Desk, and Laurence Olivier Awards (among others). Many of his pieces are popular in repertory, and it’s easy to see why.

Ludwig takes what might be considered traditional plots and does so much more than we might expect.

Be My Baby premiered at Houston’s Alley Theatre in 2005, starring Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter. It takes the crazy, impetuous young lovers, but makes the husband reserved. Then he takes the feuding “in-laws”, but their animosity isn’t always played for amusement. The comedy of Be My Baby is decidedly more organic. Similar to Neil Simon, there are moments of despair and anger, that make the humorous episodes only that much funnier. It’s so much more effective than scripts that turn on the laff machine. Be My Baby is more sophisticated by far. More polished and original and absorbing.

Rachael Lindley directs a brilliant and versatile cast. Be My Baby has a demanding script, not dealing in stock characters, taking unexpected directions. The performances are invariably intriguing and authentic. Ivy Opdyke as Maude is touching and surprising, harried but gradually tender and affectionate. Her warmth is truly memorable. Matt Gunther as John, is contentious and testy, his raspy, tortured predicament at once hilarious and charming. When we see his softer side, it’s nearly a shock, but his humanity is vibrant and nuanced.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents: Be My Baby, playing August 8th-31st, 2005. 518 West Arapaho Road, Suite 113, Richardson, Texas, 75080. 972-699-1130. richardsontheatrecentre.net

 

Maude and Gloria are en route from London to Scotland, on the occasion of Gloria’s marriage to Christy. Maude (Gloria’s Aunt) and Gloria are from London, urbane and used to finer things. Maude is none too pleased with the arrangement, perhaps she feels her niece could have done better. She’s not thrilled with the destination for the wedding. Christy greets the two, accompanied by John. John is the house manager and a family friend. Christy, in effect, John’s ward. As soon as Gloria and Christy reunite, they’ve got moves that would make acrobats proud, and they’re not coming up for air. As arrangements proceed, Maude is not exactly the ideal house guest. She seems to think her custodial duties entitle her to weigh in on every decision. In her defense, Scottish customs might feel, uh, a bit exotic. But c’mon. It isn’t polite to forbid kilts and bagpipes at a Scottish wedding.

From here, things take a turn. A friend has put up a baby girl for adoption and Gloria is dead set. The friend lives in San Francisco and what with one thing and another, John and Maude must make the journey to the Colonies, dealing with the paperwork, legalities and procedures and proper care for the wee lass. To say they squabble over everything is like saying boxers love to cuddle. Things only escalate when they’re subjected to close proximity.

Ken Ludwig is the theatre world’s dream. His first two hits were Lend me a Tenor and Crazy for You. He has written 34 plays and musicals; won Tonys, Drama Desk, and Laurence Olivier Awards (among others). Many of his pieces are popular in repertory, and it’s easy to see why.

Ludwig takes what might be considered traditional plots and does so much more than we might expect.

Be My Baby premiered at Houston’s Alley Theatre in 2005, starring Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter. It takes the crazy, impetuous young lovers, but makes the husband reserved. Then he takes the feuding “in-laws”, but their animosity isn’t always played for amusement. The comedy of Be My Baby is decidedly more organic. Similar to Neil Simon, there are moments of despair and anger, that make the humorous episodes only that much funnier. It’s so much more effective than scripts that turn on the laff machine. Be My Baby is more sophisticated by far. More polished and original and absorbing.

Rachael Lindley directs a brilliant and versatile cast. Be My Baby has a demanding script, not dealing in stock characters, taking unexpected directions. The performances are invariably intriguing and authentic. Ivy Opdyke as Maude is touching and surprising, harried but gradually tender and affectionate. Her warmth is truly memorable. Matt Gunther as John, is contentious and testy, his raspy, tortured predicament at once hilarious and charming. When we see his softer side, it’s nearly a shock, but his humanity is vibrant and nuanced.

Richardson Theatre Centre presents: Be My Baby, playing August 8th-31st, 2005. 518 West Arapaho Road, Suite 113, Richardson, Texas, 75080. 972-699-1130. richardsontheatrecentre.net

 

At the beginning of Glengarry, Glen Ross, we see Shelley Levene trying to cadge better leads from Williamson. Williamson is cool, almost bored, feeding off Levene’s desperation. He insists that he’s only following company policy. But he’s willing to accept a bribe. Dave Ross pitches an office burglary to another salesman, planning to sell the best leads. Levene manages to grab victory from the jaws of defeat, turning a junk lead into an impressive sale. Ricky Roma is the youngest of the men, jaunty and full of piss and vinegar. He’s just scored a sale for an $82,000 property.

As is often the case with Mamet, the dialogue between the guys is punchy. Enraged, hostile, vindictive. The ornery side of banter. Ricky Roma is a smooth huckster. We see him casually connect with James Lingk, an easy mark. Later, client James Lingk confronts Roma, ashamed he surrendered to his wife. Despite Roma’s best efforts to fleece him, he can’t budge. Shelley Levene is an older salesman who’s afraid he’s lost his touch. Williamson is the manager whose disrespect and resentment are hard to miss. They’re not morally bankrupt, exactly, but they find themselves trapped in a business where sympathy is a liability. They might consider quitting, but quitting is for losers

Glengarry, Glen Ross is a high octane, draconian satire, set in a real estate office where the salesmen are in fierce competition. Some are genuine friends, but mostly there’s an edge. Sometimes it’s sarcasm, sometimes it’s convivial, sometimes it’s outright contempt. The power structure is a zero sum game. It’s designed to bring out the worst in each other.

Mamet has chosen this all male petri dish to examine man’s need to respect their warrior instinct, but preserving their humanity. Though that ship may have sailed. They’re not on a salary, or even minimum wage. If they don’t make a sale, they don’t get a commission; if they don’t get a commission, they don’t eat. They’re submerged in this Clash of the Titans. They can’t see past it.

David Mamet is driven to explore manhood. What defines a male, what culture expects, what we expect of each other, the hazards and explosions and how we connect with females. He once said any male-female relationship inevitably involves some sexual attraction. My guess is he’d have no use for a term like “toxic masculinity”, or use different words. That it’s unseemly for men to nurture one another, beyond encouragement and loyalty. Which (I suppose) is not nothing.

The Classics Theatre Project’s production of Glengarry Glen Ross, is tight, seething, authentic, with vivid characterization, and kinetic performance. The pace is on the money, we feel soulfulness battling the hollow heart. Better angels duking it out with cannibals. The ensemble work coalesces beautifully. Standouts in this crackerjack cast include Anthony Magee as the poignant, scrappy Shelley Levene, John Cameron Potts as the sullen, withdrawn Williamson, and Joey Folsom as the slick, charming Ricky Roma.

The Classics Theatre Project presents Glengarry, Glen Ross, playing August 1st-31st, 2025, at The Stone cottage, adjacent to the Addison Water Tower Theatre. Stone Cottage 15650 Addison Rd. Addison, TX 75001. (214) 923-3619. tctpdfw@gmail.com. theclassicstheatreproject.com

 

Artificial Intelligence as a lens to the nature of humanity has been with us for some time. The fascination seems endless. From Ray Bradbury’s I Sing the Body Electric, to Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001, A Space Odyssey, to Phillip K. Dick’s Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep? It seems a perfect fit for Speculative Fiction’s customary blend of the fabulous with allegory. This obsessive need to prove human beings are no more than the sum of their parts, seems endless. If we ask, why do we need Van Gogh, or Rembrandt or Rothko when AI can paint the same pieces, perhaps we are already too far gone. Why this need to convince ourselves we’re nothing special? That technology is preferable to enigma?

Jane and Jackson have been happily married for ten years. Jane has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, an unimaginably dark and devastating turn. They discover The Lazarus Project, a (presumably) scientific organization that can return the deceased. Jane is intrigued, Jackson is ambivalent. Lazarus will create a flawless replicant, coalescing the client’s body with disease free infrastructure. At the start of Your Wife’s Dead Body, we see Jane jumping through all kinds of hoops (some more challenging than others) so Lazarus can gather information, intent on meticulous duplication. We see her answering questions, making sounds, fundamental calisthenics. This cuts back and forth between the somewhat dubious process, and Jackson’s first “reunion” with Jane.

Your Wife’s Dead Body examines assembling the organic, by way of the mechanical. The very concept perverse. If you think it’s possible, you’ve already missed the point. The intense splendor of living organisms: plants, birds, fish, humans, comes with the unpredictable. Of course birds migrate, plants grow towards the sun, fish spawn, and humans get hungry. But all of this will get you only so far. As Jane explains to the disembodied voices: Some days I feel like a mystery, others I want a romance. The Lazarus Project is trying to cultivate nuance, without grasping nuance. Their aims are noble. To “cure” the suffering of the bereaved. But there is a reason why the passing of our cherished ones hits us so hard. If no two cooks can use the same recipe and bake the same cake, how can we possibly hope to fabricate an actual human being?  The human condition, with all its grace and excruciation, is miraculous, not a problem to be solved.

Playwright Jenny Ledel has crafted a chilling, sharp, and mesmerizing drama in Your Wife’s Dead Body. The ghoulish title seems whimsical, but goes far beyond irony. Ledel considers details somber and touching and fraught with despair. Saving Jane from ceasing to be. The scientific team, clearly out of its depth. Or anyone’s.  The use of the phrase: from scratch. Tweaks that ignore what makes Jane who she is. The inevitable forfeiture of mortality. Gradually, each scene hits with ascending dread. Jackson is thrown into near hysteria, when his wife returns. Ledel addresses an issue that might be neglected in this ongoing debate. Treating the body without reverence is a kind of desecration. She takes on a ridiculously difficult task, then splits it open like a lightning bolt.

Second Thought Theatre presents the World Premiere of Jenny Ledel’s Your Wife’s Dead Body, playing July 24th-26th, 2025. 3400 Blackburn St, Dallas, TX, United States, Texas 75219 The Kalita Humphreys Campus. (214) 897-3091. secondthoughttheatre.com

 

The Muses (Calliope, Clio, Polyhymnia, Euterpe, Terpsichore, Erato, Melpomene, Thalia, and Urania) are chilling, when Clio discusses the plight of Sonny, a dejected and confounded sidewalk chalk artist named Sonny. She raises and proclaims the mission of all Muses to inspire and gently guide all creatives (including Scientists!!??) to the information they need to succeed. But of course, everybody knows that. To further and facilitate Sonny’s progress, Clio will assume the alias of Kira, a roller blader (legwarmers and all) who will connect with Sonny, all the better to lead him down his predetermined path. She must, however, be careful as direct interference (including jumping his bones) is strictly taboo.

Naturally for Sonny and “Kira” sparks fly immediately. She proceeds to entice and encourage him, carefully respecting the boundaries between deities and mortals. Sonny consults his enigmatic, radiant mural, noticing the word: XANADU. As luck (tehe) would have it, there is a deserted property up for sale. A failed nightclub called Xanadu. The two must do all they can to make the most of this opportunity.

T3’s production of Xanadu: an improbable musical comedy assembled from songs from other shows, is an undeniable delight. A shiny, polished spectacle with great production values and the playful heart of Rooney and Garland’s legendary barnhouse, it’s all charm and nonsense. No pun is too shameless, no nudge too sly. Filled with feminine energy and fairy tale logic, it weaves hope with the fanciful and helplessly silly. And it wields carelessness, celebration, as if it it were a language. As if it were a given. You see the disco ball and poledancer poles (shame on them!) and ribbons and bubbles and strobes and it all seems impossible. But like a gift from Dionysus, it’s not.

Kudos and congratulations to Jeffrey Ferrell and this light and loopy cast (Lauren LeBlanc, Max J Swarner, L. Walter, Hannah Arguelles, and Laura Lites).  All in all this assembly of Designers and Musicians, et al have converged to blend each element into something bright and chipper and marvellous.

Xanadu plays at Theatre Three June 5^th -July 5^th, 2026. 2688 Laclede Street, Suite 120, Dallas, TX, United States, Texas. 214-871-3300. boxoffice@theatre3dallas.com. theatre3dallas.com

I remember as a kid seeing footage of Hitler addressing the populace, and the derogatory cartoons. The odd way he spoke, there was a rhythm, yet something deeply troubling.  Something ridiculous in his demeanor, comical but pathological. Germany suffered crushing defeats and Adolph told them what they were desperate to hear. He also found a marginalized, innocuous Community (the Jews) to blame for all of Germany’s tribulations. He and a member of his inner circle devised a way to commit genocide without drawing attention.

In 1928, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera premiered in Berlin. New York in 1931. The characters included   beggars, thieves, sex workers, a very smooth, ruthless criminal (Mack the Knife) and a corrupt cop (Tiger Brown). Threepenny Opera detailed a caste system with its inhumanity, savagery, racism, and destitution. A kind of metaphysical cannibalism. Like the slave trade in the deep South, the culture subsisted on the exploitation and abuse of the oppressed, who had no agency.

Written and Directed by Matthew Posey, the sardonic Moving Creatures gets a jolt from Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera. The costumes (opulent but sad) the makeup (the white pallor of zombies) suggest the privileged yet morally destitute members of Baron Leopold McDoogal’s “cabinet.  It borrows from Brechtian techniques:  distracting the audience from the narrative, actors that step out of character to sing directly to us, dovetail with  Brecht’s manifesto.

The humor in Moving Creatures is darker than the gallows, merciless as the plague. It turns on the mechanics of satire. It’s been suggested that the roots of humor emerge from irony. Even in the midst of the horrific, a well-timed gag can alleviate the sting. Working from a vaudevillian vibe, Creatures is suffused with subversive humor. 

Baron Leopold is depicted as a profoundly disturbed, self-absorbed, imbecile. An infant in the threads of a monarch. He’s surrounded by attendants, not servants, with no volition. They indulge his every whim, but run ragged to prevent catastrophe. Like so many idiots who find themselves perched on the throne, his idea of utopia is a kingdom, a universe (?) where no one can say “No.”

Parallel to our present situation, Posey’s narrative presents a despot who spreads misery and death by sheer narcissism and hubris. You might say Posey is on a tangent with Brecht, using the same tools, but from a different angle.  Moving Creatures is an allegory, addressing our particular situation by changing the context. Baron Leopold’s court has been stripped of compassion. They have been reduced to Moving Creatures.

The cast of Moving Creatures is as poised and nuanced as they are versatile. Under Posey’s direction they have found a blend of the comical and the somber. Their movements (on a turntable!) are confident and intuitive. When you see a show at The Ochre House, the orchestration of music, song, balance, pathos, deadpan hilarity, is positively sublime.

These lunatics: they live to amaze, to enchant, to seduce, to tickle, to terrify. When they take their places on the stage, a shudder climbs up our spines, and theirs, too. Whenever I visit their realm of the fanciful, the strange, the beguiling, the hi-jinks, I know I will leave the theatre a different man than when I came in.

Ochre House Theater produced Moving Creatures, running May 3^rd,24th, 2025. 825 Exposition Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75226. 214-826-6273. ochrehousetheater.org

Brian Dang’s  H*LLO K*TTY  syndrome begins with the revelation that Hello Kitty is not a cat, but a girl. Several individuals weigh in. “What do you mean she’s not a cat? or “Well of course, she’s not a cat!” Perhaps we can presume she’s female? Or at least she presents as such. She calls herself “HK” popping up in the lives of her friends: a detective, a homemaker (her sister) and a cowboy. They take exception to her odd attire, but she refuses to remove her enormous head. She insists she’s not Hello Kitty, but HK, the girl they all know. Each feels abandoned by her, but not for want of caring. They want to intersect, but only on their terms.

What follows is a series of episodes: each a different angle intended to explore and demonstrate the same issues. Are we who we are, or how expectations shape us? Are we  defined by our pursuits, our gender, archetypes? If you strip away all the layers, when will we find the essence of the essence? Each step in each piece has some element of the ridiculous. Solemn but absurd.

Perhaps this satire on the choice between the value of self and the value of others was inspired by Samuel Beckett. In Waiting for Godot, Happy Days, Endgame, existentialist Beckett considers the same dilemma over and again. We wait for omens and evidence of divine intervention, as if we had no agency. The characters In H*LLO.. likewise are searching for answers, especially HK herself. In one scene HK asks the bumbling Stage Manager (God?) spiritual questions but his answers are vague, passive, equivocal.

Above all, H*LLO…addresses the question of gender identity, and how it plays out in the day to day world. How our culture unwittingly indoctrinates us. At one point poor HK is thrown into the lair of serial killer, as you might throw a nun into a flophouse. We adopt the roles our culture imposes, but when crisis intervenes, they break down. Each character finds themselves switching to the archetypical garb of a different gender. The compulsively pie-baking homemaker becomes the noir detective, the cowboy becomes a housekeeper, the detective becomes the cowboy. I think. It feels like kids playing make believe. HK is a normal girl, obliged to keep everybody happy. The sunshiny angel without a mouth.

The play raises the question repeatedly, is intimacy possible without authenticity? Our identity (such as it is) anchors us. But if we remove that, if we see one another without accoutrements, do we lose friends by practical application? Does society demand sketchy assignation of gender and purpose? In a pivotal scene, a man and HK begin to spark romance. She is mutually compliant, but when she won’t shed her outer layer, things get ugly. She won’t let him sandbag. He’s not wrong, exactly. But it’s not his choice to make. And we don’t know many times she’s been wounded, when she took that risk.

Undermain has produced quite the spectacle. Playwright Brian Dang illustrates their insights in revved up, urgent permutations. The performers possessed by a manic energy, a myriad of chaotic montage. The various scenes, carefully, ritualistically composed, feel as if they’re colliding with the actual.  The sublime wrestling with the farcical. The experience is exhilarating,

Undermain Theatre presents: H*LLO K*TTY syndrome, playing from May 1^st through the 25th, 2025. Undermain Theatre. 3200 Main Street Dallas, TX 75226. 214-747-5515. www.undermain.org