Author: christophersoden@sbcglobal.net

It’s the fifth time around for A Very Nouveau Holiday, and what a glorious evening it will be. Pathos, absurdity, not-so-cuddly forest creatures, squabbling, romance and emotional dependency on modern technology. And that’s just in the lobby. Devoted to the idea that Christmas Shows needn’t be dull, derivative, repetitive, uninspired and sappy, A Very Nouveau Holiday was created to bring hilarious, beguiling, quirky, unorthodox and fresh viewpoints to the holidays and how we strive to honor caring and kindness in our hearts. At this point I should mention that I am one of the Eight Playwrights being featured, and while the following will certainly not be a puff piece neither will it be a review.

As we have come to expect from Nouveau 47 (at the Margo Jones Black Box at Fair Park) nothing is sacred, off-limits, traditional or precious. Plots explored include Say Cheese (family portrait takes contentious turn) PSA (Public Service Announcement with Abraham Lincoln, the Blessed Virgin and Santa) Langdon, The Seasonal Barista (grizzly bear hired at Starbucks) Gift of the Maggies (two inmates exchange gifts) Mr. Crispy (man who can’t stop re-living the worst decision of his life) Downeaster Alexa (our reliance on technology for emotional comfort) and Radio Flyer (despondent writer moonlights as Santa).

Playwrights from all over (some as far as Neptune) submitted their short plays, and for the modest price of a ticket, you can partake of these excursions into the unknown realm of Christmas contemplation. A splendid, nimble, outrageously talented gang of actors has been cast and recast and cross-cast in eight different shows, thoroughly testing their wicked-mad skills as performers. Fret not, as a carefully chosen regimen of calisthenics, fierce indoctrination and controlled substances has been applied to guarantee a flawless (if somewhat frantic) result. In all seriousness, each piece brings its own unique angle on the holiday season, surely a time that is fraught with stress, expectations, delight, dread, chaos and sorrow. We sincerely believe you will be amused, engaged, overwhelmed, challenged and comforted. “Oh, the places you’ll go.”

The Actors: Monalisa Amidar, JR Bradford, Cameron Casey, Emily Faith, Robert Long, Chris Messersmith, Charles Themayor Ratcliff, and Jerome Stein.

The Directors: Andra Hunter, Becki McDonald, Brad McEntire, David Meglino.

The Playwrights: Franky Gonzalez, Allison Hibbs, Jonathan Kravetz, Jim Kuenzer, Brad McEntire, Ben Schroth, Greg Silva, and Christopher Stephen Soden.

Nouveau 47 (at the Margo Jones Black Box at Fair Park) presents: A Very Nouveau Holiday 2017, playing December 8th-23rd, 2017. Mondays, Fridays, and Sundays: 8:15. Saturdays 2-6PM. 1121 1st Ave, Dallas, Texas 75210. www.margojonestheatre.org. https://nouveauholiday.brownpapertickets.com/

Sara and Sam are brother and sister, and we first find them in a cemetery, not long after their Dad’s funeral. They are detached from the emotion of the occasion, though not above self-medicating. They go to one of Dad’s favorite watering holes and Sara winds up going home with Joe (a regular at the bar) and spending the night. The next morning she encounters Joe’s teenage son, Miles, who is quite smitten with her. Later she returns to Joe’s apartment to look for a lost watch, where Miles uses the excuse to make a pass. On her third visit to the cemetery, Sara finds Anna, who left brother Sam to started dating the father.

As you might guess, playwright Ellen Fairey uses the title Graceland metaphorically, perhaps because the father is popular but nobody really knows him (like Elvis?) or maybe it has something to do with the quirky nature of grace. Each of the characters is broken, or a fringe dweller, in one way or another. Sara sells kitchen knives in a shopping mall. Joe is not exactly dashing, but he’s got game when it comes to the ladies. Miles seems hopelessly strange, at an age when assimilating is crucial to kids. An interesting detail of Fairey’s narrative is the advantage of being unsuccessful. If Joe were crushing it as an alpha, he might lack the empathy to help Miles figure out dating. If Sara were pulling a six-figure salary, she might not be so understanding when Miles impulsively kisses her. The characters are kinder than society’s idea of winning would permit them to be. They are not too proud to admit they’re groping for answers and more than a little lost. They have been spared the insufferable quality of arrogance.

It seems in the recent past, a kind of hybrid genre has emerged in contemporary theatre. Perhaps it’s an offshoot of Rabe or Mamet, with barely white collar folks who are drifting, without much sense of purpose. On the whole, the content is too funny (or at least ironic) to be drama and too sad to be comedy. The characters in Graceland are trying their best. But the triggering event of death nudges them to wonder how well anybody knows anybody, and what are they doing, other than treading water. Beneath the bleak yet comical surface, malaise seeps through. We don’t get the tango between despair and hilarity we might find in say, Broadway Bound or House of Blue Leaves. That being said, Graceland has a supple, magnanimous quality to it, understated thought it may be. By the final curtain, they may not have left behind the gutter of inertia, but they are still looking at the stars.

L.I.P. Service presented Graceland from November 2nd-18th, 2017. 2535 Valley View Lane, Farmers Branch, Texas 75234. www.lipserviceproductions.info. 817-689-6461.7 68817 689 6461 9 6461

After many years of bringing great pleasure and delight to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, it saddens me greatly to share that The Three Musketeers will be Theatre Britain’s last production here in the United States. The quality of their productions has always been impeccable, from sets to costumes to wonderful actors. Theatre Britain features exclusively British scripts with drama, mysteries, comedy and of course, their annual Christmas Panto, this year running November 25th-December 30^th, 2017.

Panto is a cherished Christmas tradition in England, and while the content itself isn’t about Christmas, these silly, raucous, cheery shows that spoof fairy tales, folklore and children’s stories are the perfect complement to the Holiday Season. There’s something marvelously subversive about classic Panto, with a man impersonating a saucy, flirtatious woman (Dame) and ingenue playing a man’s role (Breeches). There’s a singalong competition between the men and women and kids from 9 to 90 are encouraged to converse with onstage characters and boo the villains. The first time I attended Christmas Panto I had no idea what to expect. It was Dick Whittington and I brought my mother along. We discovered that Panto is much more than souped-up children’s theatre (with lots of nudges to the adults) it’s a state of mind.

This year Jackie Mellor-Guin’s The Three Musketeers is up with beautiful Shay MacDonald playing D’Artagnan, and Ivan Jones as Kate Planchet. There’s lots of swashbuckling and intrigue cooked up by the diabolical Cardinal Richelieu and Madame de Winter. The story is preposterous enough to amuse the grown ups and serious enough to engage the children. The history is there, with songs and slapstick, shtick and double-entendre’s. I need to say, after some years of watching stage comedy, it’s surprising how truly difficult it is to carry off what plays as ridiculous but still actually funny. As the prevailing wisdom goes, the best make it look easy, and director Sue Birch and her bouncy, brash, brilliant cast deliver with a genuinely ticklish and fizzy show, guaranteed to dip you in sunshine.

Don’t miss your last chance to engage in this one-of-a-kind, charming experience.

Theatre Britain presents The Three Musketeers, playing November 25th-December 30^th, 2017. Cox Playhouse, 1517 H Avenue, Plano, Texas 75074. 972-490-4202. theatre-britain.com.

John, by Annie Baker, lays out a premise, then circles it, tantalizing and beguiling. A young couple, Jenny and Elias, come to stay at a Bed & Breakfast in Pennsylvania, close to Civil War battle sites. There is a suggestion that the place is haunted. Mertis runs the B & B, she’s somewhat elderly, and has a best friend named Genevieve, who is blind and possesses a psychic gift. Elias has a keen interest in Civil War history, hence their decision to stay at Mertis’ resort. Elias is Jewish and Jenny is Asian. The home is filled with souvenirs (the Yiddish word is tchothkes) figurines, snow globes, model train, houses. There is also an American Girl Doll, identical to one Jenny owned as a girl.

It’s a given that any skillful writer makes careful decisions, when disclosing information, and Baker is no exception. In some ways John owes a debt to Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and James’ The Turn of the Screw. Baker gives us strange and purposeful details about the lives of the characters, creating a sort of intimacy. We become close, sometimes learning things we’d rather not know. Jenny cannot join Elias on tours because her period has started. Elias is nearly pathologically insecure. Mertis writes journal entries that take bizarre turns. Genevieve speaks as if her ex-husband has taken over part of her being.

The challenge of exploring the otherworldly in literature rests in the realm of suggestion, of italicizing the familiar without a lot of hocus-pocus. Baker pervasively engages the elements of the supernatural in very subtle ways. By themselves they don’t seem especially unsettling, but cumulatively, they create a realm, a gestalt. If some playwrights lead us to the water trough (and stop there) Baker insists we find the water for ourselves. Mertis keeps mentioning George, a sick husband nobody ever sees. Jenny pushes Elias to lose his temper, and John, a former lover, continues to torment their relationship. The player piano kicks in as if by some trigger, that we can’t quite place. Genevieve sits and listens to the couple fight, without letting them know that she’s there. Eerie anecdotes are shared, but they seem to hinge on the reliability of the teller. We might believe them and we might not.

You might say that John dangles on a cusp between the possible and the plausible. The characters speak casually (by way of friendly conversation) of the ghoulish, the cosmic and the implacable. Baker considers how other entities (human and otherwise) intrude, taint and linger in the mind, memory and perception. Much as we ache for some irrefutable manifestation of paranormal presences, she gives us just enough intellectual (yet raw) matter to place the decision squarely on our shoulders. And it keeps us involved till the final curtain.

Undermain Theatre presents the Dallas Premiere of John by Annie Baker. Playing November 8^th – December 10^th, 2017. 3200 Main Street, Dallas, Texas 75226. 214-747-5515. www.undermain.org

It seems to me that Ochre House Theatre : Matthew Posey and his creative team of writers, actors, musicians, technicians and designers have a knack (a gift really) for exploring the lives of the marginalized. The diminished. Original Man is a musical telling the story of Joe, a desperately wounded and lost man, living with his cantankerous dad. The animosity and rage between Joe and Old Joe is at the core of this drama, though each of the characters wrestles with their own misery, and each steps up to the mike to witness, with disaffected panache. Joe’s younger brother is in debt to a gangster, his girlfriends are despondent, too, and shoot smack with him. His dad and he are routinely drunk and spend gobs of time stewing in their own malaise.

Among the many things I love about Mr. Posey and his Altar of Funny, Painful Truth is the way he reveals his protagonists with all their flaws, failures and torments. And yet makes them sympathetic. The tone is suffused with black irony and pervasive disappointment, yet it feels like a strange kind of witty….what? Resignation? Defiance? Apathy? Original Man drags us into the congealed, surreal world of Joe’s metaphysical paralysis, but it’s somehow different than watching Bergman or Fassbinder or Lynch. We don’t just peek in on Joe, we participate. We see the apparition of Ray Charles that visits him, the talking stove that convinces Tilly to attempt suicide. Rather than linear plot, we look progressively deeper and deeper into Joe’s milieu and the spiritually destitute folks that he loves. They may be downtrodden and dejected but they are also unapologetic. Full of piss and vinegar.

There is a reason that Ochre House has its reputation for theatre unlike any you will find elsewhere. They are so assured and fearless and dare greatly, conjuring the abyss with energy and ghoulish humor. The songs of Original Man might be dark ballads or wry confessions or dark blue, savvy jeremiads. Posey leads us through the realm of ferocious dystopia without a blink or shudder. Like a cross between Charlie Manson and Willy Wonka. Yet it’s all so nuanced, hell, it’s downright cozy. As if we’ve been slipped a secret potion that enables us to swim The La Brea Tar Pits without harm. Ironically, the more we drink from Joe’s cup of despair, the more we love him.

Ochre House Theatre Presents Original Man, written and directed by Artistic Director, Matthew Posey. Playing October 28th-November 18^th, 2017. 825 Exposition Avenue, Dallas, Texas 75226. 214-826-6273. www.ochrehousetheatre.org

Darja is a Polish immigrant working in a factory in Elizabeth, New Jersey. As Ironbound opens we find her arguing with her husband Tommy at a bus stop. There is a weather-beaten bench, torn posters, rough sand, broken glass, cigarette butts. The entire drama takes place at this desolate milieu, blown out and unforgiving. Darja is middle-aged, persevering, disillusioned. As she negotiates her connection to three different men, we get a sense of where her values lie, what she must do to survive, how she must be open to change. Tommy is unfaithful, another husband, Maks, is charming but violent, and a young man who helps her after she’s been beaten, Vic, is either a male prostitute, drug dealer, or both. Consistently her assumptions are challenged. Consistently she must re-evaluate.

Ironbound is simple in appearance. A gritty narrative depicting the struggles of working-class immigrants whose command of English leaves much to be desired, to subsist and find romantic companionship. But that appearance is deceptive. The longer and closer we watch, the more clearly we see that Darja’s problems are the same as anyone else’s. The disappointments, compromises, exhaustion, abuse. The trade-offs and constant need to navigate ordeals and changing circumstances. Painfully, doggedly rising every time we fall. Accepting help when independence is so crucial. Playwright Martyna Majok’s understated, ironic approach saves this play from melodrama, and ingeniously, explores the failure of The American Dream, from the eyes of those who come here to thrive and know some relief.

Most of the characters speak a kind of broken/pidgin English, and again, Majok surprises us. Though their command of speaking lacks facility and nuance, it actually explicates content. It’s amazing how much we can infer from such sparse conversation. Though we know their diction is unsophisticated, it clarifies the truth of the situation, with lyricism and grace. As the show evolves, the dialogues achieves a kind of poetry. Majok creates virtue and steps that come closer to actual meaning by using less polished English as a tool. There’s something surprisingly poignant happening when Maks sings a nightclub tune with the bravado and optimism of a striver who refuses to forfeit hope. Kitchen Dog Theater continues to find exquisite, daring, beguiling and profoundly touching shows that are quietly overwhelming and subversively resonant.

Kitchen Dog Theater presents Ironbound, playing October 26th-November 12^th, 2017. 2600 North Stemmons Fwy #180, Dallas, Texas 75207. (214) 953-1055. www.kitchendogtheater.org

Little Shop of Horrors, the musical inspired by the Roger Corman film, has always been subversive. It’s a comedy, sure. But the undercurrent of the wretched of the earth, the denizens of Skid Row, who haven’t got a chance and expect nothing, flows throughout the narrative. Many characters are cynical, except for Seymour and Audrey, who work at Mr. Mushnik’s Flower Shop. They are both naive, but affable, perhaps the only two likable characters in the show. Seymour was adopted by Mr. Mushnik as an orphan. Now he sleeps on a mat in the basement, sweet-natured enough to be grateful to Mushnik, who isn’t exactly a philanthropist. Seymour is a lovable nebbish, schmendrick among the losers of Skid Row, but the kindest and most genuine we’ll find. When he discovers an unusual plant, of course, he names it for his Lady Love, Audrey (i.e. The Audrey II). Audrey doesn’t squeal, but rather, squeaks her surprise and elation. Like an adorable mouse. This kind of wry, tongue-in-cheek cynicism, suffuses like the acrid scent of a smudge stick.

Once word of The Audrey II gets around, and Seymour gets a taste of notoriety and success, he discovers the plant can only subsist on blood. As Audrey II grows and Seymour sees Audrey herself being abused by Orin, the dentist, his path is clear. Kill Orin and feed him to the plant. At this point Little Shop reaches it’s most gleefully grisly, when Seymour sings a duet with the plant: “….The guy sure looks like plant food to me…” Perhaps it’s because of the unlikely nature of the premise that makes giggling and merriment so hard to resist. An enormous plant that devours people whole? C’mon. And yet watching her swallow them is unbelievably funny. Little Shop’s perverse, quirky mix of nihilism, absurdity and class revenge goes down surprisingly well. Misanthropy is pervasive, and suffering a given. When Orin sings his ode to dentistry and the opportunities it affords for sadism, it’s so off the charts, we can’t help but laugh. And we’ve all been in that terrifying chair.

Director Marilyn Setu and this maniacal, meticulous, amazingly energetic cast bring out the chills and chuckles in Howard Ashman’s and Alan Mencken’s ghoulish comedy. Setu has evoked an eeriness that I have never seen in previous productions, throughout the Metroplex. It was surprising and pleasurable to see the touches that took Little Shop to the realm of dread and despair, while maintaining the thread of deliciously preposterous humor. Setu treats us to her unique, jaundiced vision, and it’s just right for Halloween and a tickle to the ribs.

The Firehouse Theatre presents: Little Shop of Horrors, playing October 12th-29th, 2017. 2535 Valley View Lane, Farmers Branch, Texas 75234. 972-620-3747. Firehousetheatre.com

In 1942, the Cocoanut Grove was all the rage in Boston. Movie stars, celebrities and the hoi polloi all rubbed shoulders, in an exuberant gathering of music, dancing, dining, and basking in the high life. The Grove was so popular, they had trouble with customers walking the check. Hard to keep track of them all. So some exits were locked, some were hidden. The Fire Marshall was stretched too thin, or remiss in his duties, or maybe both. Some speculated a waiter started the blaze when he struck a match to illuminate a table where the bulb was out. It was common practice for lovers to loosen the light for privacy, and waiters to solve the problem with a quick scratch. Whatever the ingredients in this black magic, this merciless catastrophe, 492 lives were lost, and the world would never be the same.

Playwright James Prince tackles a difficult subject in Inferno: Fire at the Cocoanut Grove 1942. First the raw facts and then the spiritual, metaphysical implications. We meet different characters: musicians, singers, hat check girl, bus boys, dancers, patrons, and get a feel for the prevailing attitudes of the time. From the newsreels of 1942 with headlines, glamour, trailers from new movies, to the monologues and dialogues between characters, we get a feel for the innocence, the carefree exuberance, that seemed to be everywhere. Then we get descriptions of the holocaust. Fire gobbling drapes, walls, furniture, décor, in an instant. Stampedes of panicked customers, grisly stacks of the dead. Salvation that feels random and inexplicable, acts of heroism and overwhelming injury and destruction.

In any piece that reflects on atrocious events, that change lives before the victims can even process, certain questions arise. Why was I spared? Why did those people die? Why does God permit this kind of ghastly, horrific situation? Why couldn’t I do more? Prince explores this introspection and painful doubt, relief or engulfing despair with sensitivity, intelligence and humanity. He never stoops to the tawdry or the lurid. He does not presume to judge his characters, but gives them the opportunity to share their truths, without suggesting there can be any one satisfying answer. Yes, this calamity forever changed safety regulations, but sadly, there are still those who think they can fudge without consequences. Apart from from these considerations, Prince touches briefly on the more vast implications, just enough to nudge us to the realm of the terrible and awesome.

The Core Theatre presents Inferno: Fire at the Cocoanut Grove 1942, playing October6th-29th, 2017. 518 W. Arapaho Rd. Suite 115, Richardson, TX 75080 . (214) 930-5338. www.thecoretheatre.org

Adding Machine is a tongue-in-cheek, satirical musical, adapted from the play by Elmer Rice that debuted in the 1920’s. On the 25^th Anniversary of his hiring with an accounting firm, “Zero” is fired. His boss explains no hard feelings, but an adding machine is far more efficient, without the bother of requiring a wage. Expediency eclipses humanity. Poor Zero is not a human being, but an asset that has ceased to be essential. He has fallen under the ax of expediency. In a fit of blind rage he murders his boss, and condemned to death by hanging. But that is just the beginning.

From the outset, we can tell Adding Machine is not a conventional musical. A chorus of four supplies histrionic, operatic urgency and fills in by playing various roles throughout. Their often amusing behavior stands in stark contrast to the content of the lyrics. We begin with Zero and Mrs. Zero, climbing into bed. While the missus natters about gossip, social obligations, disappointments. Sadly, she is an unmitigated harridan, and it’s not long before she digs in: I was a fool to marry you, this sort of thing. There is a cartoony, excessive mien to all this, all the better to tickle you, my dear; a blending of social commentary and absurd humor. In the office we see the daily rhythm of adding numbers, and gradually catch on that despite their bickering, Zero and his assistant, Daisy DeVore, have an unacknowledged yearning for each other.

Rice was probably ahead of his time in writing this dystopian critique of the empty values behind capitalism. The subsequent score and libretto by Joshua Schmidt and Jason Loewith italicize and heighten the material. The murder of The Boss is merely a triggering event that propels Zero to death row and the afterlife, and subsequent examination of the foibles of humanity and our need for purpose. There’s a wry undercurrent to the most serious of events, never letting us forget we are witnessing a marriage between the wretched and the ridiculous. Even when Zero is offered the opportunity to move past drudgery it would seem he is more devoted to his shackles. For all our encouragement to read him as a schlub, he is also an Everyman, finding his value as a person (and a man) in the soothing ritual of a repetitive job.

I never cease to be astonished at the stamina, brilliance and inventiveness of the shows at Theatre 3. Artistic Director Jeffrey Schmidt has taken the new season in an edgy direction, with fresh ideas about practice and worldview. Director Blake Hackler and this diligent, dedicated, kinetic cast (Allison Pistorius, Thomas Ward, Jenni Roller, Brandon McInnis, John Daniel Pszyk, James Chandler, Angela Davis, Kathryn Taylor Rose and Ashley Wood) et al, bring a loopy, hilariously grim energy to this deliciously jaundiced fable.

Adding Machine: A Musical plays September 28^th -October 22^nd, 2017. Theatre 3. 2800 Routh Street, Suite 168, Dallas, Texas 75201. 214-871-3300. theatre3dallas.com

Albee’s premise for Occupant is deceptively simple. A character known simply as “The Man” posthumously interviews the ghost of ground-breaking sculptor Louise Nevelson. You would think such an exchange would be straightforward, and in some ways it is. Using a set (by Nick Brethauer) that features some of Nevelson’s sculptures and music reminiscent of PBS talk shows from the 70’s, Occupant asks the sort of questions we might expect, before delving into what might be construed as intrusive. In the world we currently inhabit, it’s hard to imagine any inquiry that exceeds the lines of propriety. Celebrities discuss deeply personal issues without batting an eye, and interviewers are allowed latitude past polite evasion. The difference in Occupant is Nevelson’s interrogator, while certainly not aggressive, has an annoying habit of responding with passive disdain. If you say so, or Whatever you say. This sort of thing. Sometimes Nevelson takes the bait, and sometimes she doesn’t. Sometimes she’s appalled by his sheer audacity.

Nevelson’s first response is surprise the host needs to tell the audience who she is, as if nobody has heard of her phenomenal career. I think the allure of this piece is that Edward Albee wants to tap the core of what made Nevelson unique. Occupant was published in 2001 and we can only speculate if the trend away from deferentially laudatory biographies (though respectful) had begun at that time. Albee doesn’t use any of the predictable hocus-pocus you might expect from a drama that includes a deceased character. There seems to be a very wide discrepancy between how Nevelson wants to be remembered and the sometimes tawdry, often painful details that The Man persistently seeks. Nevelson repeatedly struggles to maintain her composure when he catches her off guard, and is certainly not above lambasting him with an impassioned Fuck off.

Behind the interviewer’s desire to avoid strewing garlands at Nevelson’s feet, and her refusal to be degraded in front of strangers, lies the question of how much does a famous success owe their public, and how does anyone (even a genius) forgive themselves, with all their ghastly flaws? A female celebrity was probably a better choice. Notorious examples, such as Hitchcock, Einstein and Picasso probably had little problem granting atonement to themselves. Being men. Nevelson discusses her failures as a mother, and her infidelities. But grudgingly. Albee seems to be aiming to show the woman, the brilliant, quirky, defiantly unique artist, with her strange worldview and regrettable mistakes. Nevelson comes off as achingly human. But then, we also begin to grasp the chutzpah it took her to break out and shock the world, as any significant sculptor must.

Occupant plays October 5th-21st, 2017. WingSpan Theatre Company. The Bath House Cultural Center. 521 East Lawther Drive, Dallas, Texas 75218. 214-675-6573. www.wingspantheatre.com