Category: Critique

 

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

 

Gail has been chronically ill for more than twenty-five years. Agonizing, intense, punishing. After a parade of doctors and specialists she is no closer to a solution. Understandably desperate, she sells her home to check into a sanitarium, that promises a possible cure. Once she gets there, she is greeted by Sacha, the gatekeeper. She offers Gail a glass of water, then tells her where she can get one. The consummate host.

It doesn’t take long to discover just how sketchy this institution is. Dr. Tolliver the “guru” has a doctorate in Literature, not Medicine. The regimen is decidedly Draconian. No leaving your Spartan cabin after curfew, no questioning their methods or ideology, no wandering the grounds. No contact with the outside for three weeks. Warmth or encouragement offered only in small doses, if at all.

We must wonder if Dr. Tolliver wraps her recovery retreat in mystery so she can appropriate the client’s money. Despairing patients willing to sign up for any inkling of hope. If the passengers of the Titanic knew their ultimate destination, would they have purchased a ticket? We could speculate on the strategy behind the treatment. Distract the patient from focusing on their illness. Some of the sick will hold fast to their pathology, because it gives them some psychological reward. Don’t indulge physical torment, because it could hold them back.

One is reminded of the notorious Boot Camps for delinquent teens, where they are subjected to Drill Sargent techniques. Prolonged hikes and sleep deprivation and compulsory submission. Results are no measure of success. If you shoplift and they cut off your hand, you’re reformed? For some it works, others die.

Playwright Blake Hackler aims to explain the inexplicable. If you’re chronically ill and science fails, try the unorthodox. If the unorthodox fails, find a metaphysical healer. Luckily Dr. Tolliver keeps one in the wings, for just such emergencies. Gail is wheeled out on a gurney, with the reassurance she’s in for worse suffering, but it should do the trick. No other explanation. Just another enigma.

There are patterns. Martyrdom. Lack of compassion. Victim blaming. Equivocation. It’s not unusual to find dramas that offer (to engage, to provoke) questions with no answers. Perhaps this drama (like a pilgrim) wants to find out why healing sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t. Perhaps at long last, it’s unknowable.

Second Thought Theatre presents Healed, playing April 23rd-May 10^th, 2025. Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys Campus. 3400 Blackburn Street, Dallas, Texas 75219. 214-837-3091. secondthoughttheatre.com

 

Ms. Sheppard: doctor to the villagers of King’s Abbott, in England, lives with her sister, Caroline, a rich source for local gossip. There’s been talk that Mrs. Ferrars died at her own hand, but Sheppard is suspicious. She’s been called in, to certify the cause of death, a year after Ferrars murdered her husband. She has been invited to dinner at Roger Ackroyd’s home. Ackroyd and Ferrars were secretly engaged to be wed. The others include a big game hunter, Ackroyd’s sister-in-law, and her daughter, Parker, the butler, his personal secretary, a housemaid and parlour maid.

Dinner is rambunctious. The hunter knows dozens of anecdotes (perhaps too many) the sister-in-law is a tactless lush, Ackroyd is something of a tyrant, the parlour maid is a bit flighty. And that’s only the half. While chatting over cigars and brandy Ackroyd confides he’s received a letter from Ferrars, after her passing. He asks for some privacy, and the doctor departs. When it’s discovered the next day that Roger Ackroyd has been murdered, Sheppard enlists the help of retired detective, the preeminent Hercule Poirot. Fortuitously, he’s her neighbor, but she had no idea. The police are called: the Police Chief and Inspector Raglan. From the outset Raglan resents Poirot’s “interference.”

In 1926, when the novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was released, it was wildly successful, selling countless copies. Critics considered it her best work. The novel went through two adaptations. The second (by Mark Shanahan) debuted two years ago in Houston’s Alley Theater. It included Christie’s signature mix of multiple suspects, juicy scandal, and detailed character development. Authors who followed after often copied the structure, but sadly, stooped to paltry content, implausible turns, and flimsy plots. That is to say: a poor shadow of the master’s art.

The production I saw at Richardson Theatre Centre was wonderfully and meticulously wrought. Each character distinct and their humanity clear and evident. I always wonder how difficult it must be to orchestrate these large casts. But Director Rachael Lindley was skillful and the performers were poised, salient and energetic. A number of characters written as men, were played by women, with intriguing results. I have seen my share of Christie plays, but I must say, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd had depth and a finish that was positively chilling.

Richardson Theatre Center presented The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: February 7th-March 2^nd, 2025. 518 West Arapaho Road, Suite 113, Richardson, Texas 75080. 972-699-1130. richardsontheatrecentre.net

Evelyn and William are husband and wife. William is a boisterous movie mogul, Evelyn is a homemaker. She takes an unidentified pill, that William more or less forces on her daily. She is pleasant. But sometimes seems irrational, or a bit out of it. They have no children. They live in a posh home in 1960’s Hollywood. She and neighbor Cassandra visit regularly. When the subject of the notorious Watts Riots comes up, Evelyn doesn’t want to discuss it. William goes to the studio where he auditions rising starlets. Billy and Mary arrive. They are young, affectionate lovers. Mary is looking for her big break. William takes an immediate interest in her.

In Act Two we see a big change in Billy and Mary. Billy has become William’s protege. Mary has gotten lots of serious attention at the studio. Especially from William. She wears “hippie” threads, suggesting perhaps she is more savvy, and not as restrained. Billy wears a three-piece suit, just like mentor William. His whole attitude has changed. He and William indulge in a fair amount of whiskey, while William “tutors” him in studio business culture. When Mary and Evelyn are left to themselves, they start comparing notes on the improprieties that happen during screen tests. Evelyn is an accomplished (albeit retired) star herself, and their stories are very similar.

Written and Directed by Kevin Grammer: Fate Complete is a brilliant, nuanced exploration of systemic sexual harassment and rape culture in the movie trade, and (I think it’s safe to infer) in similar situations where women have no leverage. The studio transforms actresses into idealized, glamorous film stars, but not before they submit to sexual assault, tacit though it may be.

Evelyn quit film acting prematurely, and when Mary tells Billy she’s been fending off William’s advances, he expects her to play along. There’s a kind of buffered hysteria in Evelyn’s demeanor, probably assuaged by William’s pills. Fate Complete comes from a French expression (fait accompli) that means: done deal or accomplished fact. And so it is with Evelyn and Mary. It’s a given that they (and all women) must forfeit sexual favors to succeed in the patriarchy. That is to say: a male-dominated society.

Ochre House has a gift for impeccable, intriguing theatre, and often quirky, inspired touches. The acting feels more spontaneous, the writing intelligent and intuitive, the sets ingenious, and the narratives haunting. They are obtuse, which is to say, not obvious or predictable. Over the years I have seen enormous puppets, Lamb slaughterers who speak in Shakespearean diction, a musical featuring Charles Manson, Squeaky Fromm and Tex Watson and Intense, hypnotic Flamenco. All of them, phenomenal. Don’t miss this last week of Fate Complete.

Ochre House presents: Fate Complete playing February 8^th through March 1^st,2025. 325 Exposition Avenue, Dallas, Texas. 214-826-6273. ochrehousetheater.org

 

Like so much literature, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to improve as we get older. Probably because we understand what’s actually going on. It evokes Juliet’s observation of the “inconstant moon” whose changes have a mercurial effect on human beings. Shakespeare would aim to capture the essence of the essence of sorcery. A nebulous word like “magic” altogether insufficient. There’s some beguiling and enigmatic floating in the right hour, the right season, that plays havoc with lovers. Puck, a nimble sprite finds delicious pleasure in messing with mortals, glad to act on Oberon’s (King of the Faeries) commands.

Hermia is promised to Demetrius, a very poised and suave suitor, but Hermia’s in love with the hot-blooded rapscallion, Lysander. Hermia’s dearest friend, Helena, is smitten with Demetrius, and Hermia would gladly comply, but she’s stuck. Meanwhile Oberon and his Queen Titania are at odds. He sends Puck to gather flowers that steer the victim to inappropriate love. Between Puck and Oberon their meddling only complicates already volatile situations. The desired results turn to fiasco, and brawling ensues. Havoc is chaos is disaster.

A troupe of Craftsmen who also dabble in theatre, are enlisted to present a play to entertain at the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. Their hearts are true, but they’re not exactly Equity. Under the direction of Quince they enact the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, their intense love thwarted by a wall. Tinker Tom Snout plays the Wall. So then five couples: Theseus and Hippolyta, Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, Oberon and Titania, Titania and Bottom (?) the Donkey (you half-expect Demetrius and Lysander) are reflected in the fable of Pyramus and Thisbe. Which is to say: Mortal or Faery, Human or Supernatural, romantic love springs from the ridiculous.

The Classics Theatre Project’s production of Midsummer Night’s…is spot on with their unorthodox, bold slant on the material. The costumes reveal the 1960’s, as well as the music played by a live band. The trippy, strange ideology of the Summer of Love suits the material well. The interstellar influence on mankind emerges from the enormous moon that rotates and shifts. Unless I’m mistaken there are several, sly references to “mary jane.”

There are particular plays that are demanding, unforgiving and overwhelming (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Birthday Party) and certainly A Midsummer Night’s Dream fits. It’s not enough to hear the cues and make the mark. There’s an ephemeral, elusive enchantment that’s more intuitive than rational. Like catching a butterfly blindfolded. The cast here delivers with poise and verve and playfulness.

Think Lightning in a Bottle and don’t miss TCTP’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The Classics Theatre Project presents: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, plays: February 1^st– March 8^th, 2025. 15650 Addison Theatre Centre Studio, Addison Road, Addison, TX, theclassicstheatreproject.com. tctdfw@gmail.com. 214-923-3619.

 

John Cariani’s Almost, Maine is an exquisite, poetic piece. A number of extremely short plays (not sketches) with a common thread. The excruciation, the bliss, the irony, the confusion of love. Each fable happens on the brink of an important revelation. A cusp. Each has its own tone, its own salient emotion. A man sends a potential girlfriend on preposterous journey. A man crosses paths with his ex, only to have his last scrap of hope demolished. A woman visits her fiancee to return all the love she gave him. I think it’s fair to say each story has more than one point. Often we don’t know where one is headed. You’ve probably figured by now there’s more than a little absurdity, but it’s closer to Beckett than The Marx Brothers.

There’s an ethereal kind of tint to Almost, Maine. I’ve noticed some productions lean more towards the humorous aspects, even when the content is somber. This is director’s discretion, of course, but I’m glad that Nancy Cecco and Martin Mussey didn’t give us short shrift. Some of this is positively wrenching, but it fits the structure. None of the incidents, are extraordinary, exactly, though they sometimes feel whimsical. They present the couples with a choice to make, even if it’s to accept a hard truth. Taken as a single experience, Almost, Maine bears a kind of enchantment: the mysterious, the serendipitous, the aha!, the tingle or the grief that pushes us to the next episode. Like a gestalt, it fuses to an epiphany greater than the sum of its parts. When you leave and it washes over you, it’s astonishing.

Laurels, to Cecco and Mussey for this remarkable, nuanced production, Almost, Maine shimmers with various degrees of hues, and these two hit every note. It’s a demanding script, it’s too easy to settle for a gloss, though I daresay some cannot resist that temptation. It’s deceptively simple, like a haiku or a koan. The cast: Brian Hoffman, Maxine Frauenheim, Johnny Jordan, Jr, Sydney Dyer, Jamie Gutzler, Brett Femrite, Ian Grygotis, Kathleen Vaught and Tim Desky have clearly brought their A-Game: versatility, authenticity, focus and energy to this splendid show.

Productions of this caliber are exceedingly rare. Don’t miss your this last chance this weekend.

BTW: Watch out for that shoe.

Allen Contemporary Theatre presents: Almost, Maine, playing now January 24th- February 9^th, 2025. 1210 E Main Street, #300, Allen, TX, United States, Texas,75002. (844) 822-8849.

allencontemporarytheatre.net

(Fridays and Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 3)