Category: Critique

Alida (Stephanie Dunnam) is a writer and something of a hermit. Beth (Catherine D. DuBord) is a therapeutic assistant working for a psychiatric clinic. When Alida comes in for evaluation, Beth is struck by her poignant skills as a storyteller, and discovers she is actually a famous author, who is forging a new manuscript. She eventually goes from helping her part-time, to being her full time assistant, overcome by a sense of genuine care and desire to see this last book published. Alida, unfortunately, is high-maintenance. She is sharp, but also elderly, so her memory is failing her, which makes her suspicious and thoroughly unpleasant. The memories which Alida must excavate to write her text are painful, and she’s having troubles enough just functioning day to day. Beth, however, is remarkably patient. Though Alida often crosses the line when poking about in Beth’s poor boyfriend choices, she seems determined to help Alida heal emotional wounds.

Playwright Jennifer Haley explores the pervasive, often subtle wisdom of fairytales in Breadcrumbs. So many of us grew up with Little Red Riding Hood, The Frog Prince, Cinderella, that we’re not necessarily inclined to look much further than the plot. As you might imagine, Haley uses the archetypes found in Hansel and Gretel to deepen and illuminate the connection between Beth and Alida. As a child, Alida suffered some excruciating episodes, not because her mother didn’t love her, but because they both were exploited by her mother’s lousy taste in men. Haley makes it clear that Alida’s mother was conscientious and demonstrative, only sadly misguided. As the narrative of Breadcrumbs unwinds, it becomes very clear that you needn’t be a crone to be lonely or absent-minded, and that bad judgment or inappropriate methods needn’t be a stain on one’s character.

Haley skillfully overlaps the roles that Alida and Beth fulfill in each others’ lives. Life has taught Alida you don’t require men to live happily and Beth understands that being reliable for Alida nurtures her, too. Hansel and Gretel make escape one witch only to encounter another, but Gretel finds the strength to save both her brother and herself, even if it means burning down the candy cottage. Under the direction of Susan Sargeant: Dunnam and DuBord exquisitely manifest this raw, human, achingly melancholy drama of the lyricism of need, brokenness and compassion. Haley certainly doesn’t knock us over the head with her echoes of the dynamic between the cunning, isolated sorceress and the terrified, yet resourceful little girl. It comes closer to a kind of diptych. Breadcrumbs is a marvelously intelligent and vastly moving journey.

WingSpan Theatre Company presents Breadcrumbs, playing October 6th-22nd, 2016. Bath House Cultural Center, 521 East Lawther Drive, Dallas, Texas 75218. 214-675-6573. www.wingspantheatre.com

The Wedding Singer a stage musical (based on the movie) by Matt Sklar, Tim Herlihy and Chad Beguelin is a goofy, satirical romp celebrating cheesy American pop culture of the 1980’s. Tim Herlihy, as a matter of fact, wrote the screenplay for the film. Robbie Hart is a congenial, good-hearted singer/songwriter and musician who leads a three man band that plays many small events, including bar mitzvahs, birthdays, anniversaries and (you guessed it) weddings. Robbie is still waiting for his ship to come in, but his delayed success has not made him bitter. The beginning of The Wedding Singer finds him serenading the happy couple, the night before his own wedding to Linda. Julia Sullivan is a waitress at the club that books so many of Robbie’s gigs. Julia is sweet, genuinely caring, and perhaps has a little more on the ball than Robbie. As you might expect, Robbie and Julia are both promised to the wrong people, but don’t worry. It will all come out in the wash.

Inspired by the music of the 80’s, but with an original score, The Wedding Singer is filled with happy surprises. I’m not a huge fan of Adam Sandler (Robbie of the film) but there’s a kind of unvarnished, unapologetic cynicism behind much of the humor, that curiously enough, seems to energize the show. It walks the razors edge of schmaltz, then smacks you off your pins with a nice big dose of misanthropy. Not that Wedding Singer is especially more jaundiced than any other musical satire, say like Avenue Q or A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. Sklar, Herlihy, and Beguelin (and/or Bruce Coleman) have taken great pains to cultivate that classy 1980’s milieu, from hair-don’ts and Rubik’s Cubes to Mr. T and the snarling Billy Idol. We’re invited to laugh in the same way we’d view our high school graduation pictures and cringe. Most rewarding I think, is the insistence that there’s more to life than being the coolest guy in the room.

Special props must go to Costume Design by Bruce Coleman and Scenic Design by David Walsh, who have created vivid, jazzy, evocative threads and sets, all the better to set the party throbbing. This cast must be living on a diet of V8 and Red Bull. Poised, resourceful director Bruce Coleman has them hoppin and bobbin and jumping through hoops that should qualify the lot for Cirque D’ Soleil. Numerous and nimble costume and scenery changes are demanded by actors and crew and we never once see any of them miss their marks. Throw taste and caution to the wings and enjoy a daffy, giggly night with The Wedding Singer.

Theatre 3 presents The Wedding Singer, playing September 22nd -October 16th, 2016. 2800 Routh Street, Suite 168, Dallas, Texas 75201. 214-871-3300. www.theatre3dallas.com

One of the hazards of dramatizing the life of Joseph Merrick (in The Elephant Man) is doing justice to his predicament without stumbling into bathos. In 1977, Bernard Pomerance achieved just that. Though intelligent, spiritually avid and articulate, Merrick was burdened with a profoundly disfiguring (and disabling) disease that brought out the worst in others. Far worse than the symptoms of Merrick’s pathology was the abuse heaped upon him; whether he was being put on display as a freak of nature, or beaten by strangers overcome with revulsion. Fortunately for Merrick, he is discovered by Dr. Frederick Treves, who temporarily rescues him for the sake of medical exploration. While Treves is certainly not indifferent to Merrick’s suffering, it is only after Carr Gomm’s (his superior) intervention that he offers Merrick permanent refuge from a life filled with pain and degradation.

Pomerance is positively ingenious in his strategy to avoid pity or exploiting a premise already loaded with excruciation. Merrick has a positively dry, wry wit, that permits him to challenge the best intentions of his benefactors, without seeming ungrateful or petulant. None of the characters seem beatific or lofty, which somehow makes Merrick’s groping for answers and unvarnished humanity all the more touching. Sometimes he seems more like a precocious boy or visitor from Neptune. Treves never comes off as saint or savior, which makes his friendship with Merrick palpable and completely believable. His love for Merrick is utterly convincing because he never once uses the word. Pomerance has composed dialogue that amounts to understated lyricism, a kind of plain, sly poetry that cuts right into you.

L.I.P. Service’s production of The Elephant Man features outstanding performances by Jason Leyva (Joseph Merrick) Pat Watson (Frederick Treves) and Sara Lovett (Mrs. Kendall). One can only imagine the stress of taking on such an emotional drama, though Pomerance provides casual levity to alleviate the dark and sorrowful shadows lurking in the content. It must be very difficult to navigate this narrative with authenticity and clarity while striking the perfect tone. Merrick’s tumultuous struggles were often positively wrenching, so tone here is crucial. Clearly director Shawn Gann was striving to capture this elusive, delicate sparrow, and the results are quite effective and memorable.

L.I.P. Service Productions presents The Elephant Man, playing September 29th -October 15th, 2016. The Firehouse Theatre, 2535 Valley View Lane, Farmer’s Branch, Texas 75234. 817-689-6461. www.lipserviceproductions.info

Inspiring. Enraging. Heartbreaking. Exhilarating. Cara Mia’s current show: Crystal City 1969 will catch you off-guard. I confess that I was unfamiliar with this incident in Crystal City, Texas (unlike Stonewall, Ferguson, Little Rock) where high school students protested blatant, brazen, unconscionable discrimination from teachers and administrators alike. Not that Texas has ever led the way when it came to issues like civil rights, but even for a school operating in the Bible Belt, in 1969, the transgressions of those in authority were particularly egregious. Students were paddled for speaking Spanish, refused equal participation in school activities (though they outnumbered Anglos) shamed, humiliated and verbally abused in the classroom by teachers, punished for protesting or even signing petitions. Some young men were even sent to the front lines of the Vietnam War, made cannon fodder for the sheer audacity of objecting to unfair treatment.

Somewhat similar to The Laramie Project, Crystal City 1969, shows a myriad of characters and situations. The toxic effect of diminishing and degrading ethnicities and races perceived as “the other,” by those in power. We are privy to the home lives of the students, parents, Latinos, Anglos, no one is demonized or canonized. If anything the commonplace occurrence of unchallenged racism and imperialism is made palpable. None of the white people are made to look like The Grand Dragon or Simon Legree, but the gratuitous hostility, the remarks like, “I thought you were one of the good ones,” illustrate the disgusting way a culture indoctrinates its members to seek comfort and validation by subjugating others. Again and again we see individuals ignored, knocked down or eliminated lest they begin to act on their self-esteem. Even the most reasonable requests for decent humanity is met with arrogance and abuse.

Whenever a play seeks to examine the nature of prejudice, civil rights, the countless ways human beings find to justify beating and lynching and exterminating one another (In White America, Bent, The Diary of Anne Frank) the risk is stacking the deck, on one side or the other. Jason might have treated Medea like drek, but he still gets to tell his side of the story. Playwrights David Lozano and Raul Trevino have avoided this entirely. Crystal City 1969 is not distorted or amplified. It tells the story of Latinos in a small, provincial Texas town, where bigotry is so ingrained in Anglo behavior, that it must be fought, without stooping to their level. Cara Mia Theatre and this wonderful cast (and adroit director David Lozano) have crafted a deeply moving, powerful, stirring narrative of the triumph of humanity and spiritual abundance when we genuinely care for and look out for one another. I think Jesus said something like that, didn’t He?

Cara Mia Theatre presents Crystal City 1969, playing September 24th – October 16th, 2016. Latino Cultural Center. 2600 Live Oak Street, Dallas, Texas 75204. 214-516-0706. CaraMiaTheatre.org.

Undermain Theatre has an uncanny knack for producing plays that combine the surreal with the actual, the fantastic with the everyday. Strangeness freely mingles with the ordinary. In the first part of the trilogy, So Go the Ghosts of Mexico, by Matthew Paul Olmos, the heroine takes on the job of Police Chief, when the previous one is murdered, and no one else interested. Young, pretty, married and pregnant, she is done with the terror, corruption and violence that poisons the life of she, her husband and community. Her husband, is, of course, aghast. He wastes no opportunities to make her feel guilty, despite her exceptional heroism and valor. He just wants a wife content with raising their children and keeping out of harm’s way.

Based on a true story, A Brave Woman in Mexico, uses the components of theatre to explain how one woman is able to turn a situation that is beyond hopeless. And she does so without firearms, killing, or strong-arm tactics. The drug dealers and thugs are gobsmacked and utterly incredulous. They think she’s insane. And so do we. Yes, this woman is, in her own way, extraordinary. But it’s not as if she’s impervious to violence or mayhem. Maybe she’s far more extraordinary than she seems. It’s as if she’s somehow tapped into a transcendent power facilitated by utter faith in what’s right. Almost a secular saint. Coming from her worldview, she’s really just being practical. She doesn’t believe the answer to taking lives is to take more. Her female gender (or so Olmos would suggest) removes her from the folly of the endless pissing contest.

Then there’s the aspect of the supernatural. Perhaps more probable in a culture that believes the dead move freely (if invisibly) among the living. Where two days each November they are celebrated with altars and feasts. Olmos takes deliberate steps to make the miraculous (if not celestial) palpable and comprehensible within the realms of verisimilitude. The brave woman (as she is identified in the program) doesn’t understand how her radio channels with no apparent source of energy, but she utilizes it. When the grisly ghost of the former police chief helps with her struggle, she’s not exactly disaffected, but she goes with it. Er, him. Without revealing more details, Olmos embraces the possibility that phenomenal strength of character and refusal to back down, can transform a world drowning in drek. He does so without blinking or taking refuge in irony. The Undermain is like a temple for the weary and cynical, and this is a splendid, sophisticated, subtly persuasive show.

Undermain Theatre presents: So Go the Ghosts of Mexico : Part One : A Brave Woman in Mexico, playing September 14^th-October 8^th, 2016. 3200 Main Street, Dallas, Texas 75226. 214-747-1424. www.undermain.org

Myron Siegel is a lovable nebbish with a lot of heart. Despite his best efforts to produce a successful Broadway hit, lapses in judgment and cruel fate seem to conspire against him. His new show is about to open, a lot of money is on the line, and his arch-nemesis, Carl Dennam, is about to unveil a “Mystery Attraction,” guaranteed to fill the seats every night, and rob Myron of his desperately needed audience. His mother Sally is constantly deprecating him, comparing him to his father, who also lacked business acumen, and his niece, Daisy, is in town. Daisy is a small-town teenager, and the glamorous temptations of New York City in 1933, have caught her with their powerful spell. His wife Bertrille is actually….well, let’s just say she’s up to no good, and leave it at that.

Jack Neary’s Kong’s Night Out, a kind of homage to the screwball comedies of the 30’s and 40’s (such as Bringing Up Baby and My Man Godfrey) is chock full of wisecracks, shtick, banter and a healthy appreciation for the ridiculous. Warmth is mixed with cynicism, pratfalls with absurd conversations. One of the advantages of a 30’s comedy written in the 21^st century, is Neary’s opportunities to sneak in suggestive gags: Bertrille: When are you going to untie me? Carl: Why? I thought you liked to be tied up. Kong’s Night Out is a supremely pleasurable experience, well-balanced between narrative and mirth. Neary doesn’t need to barrage us with an endless stream of jokes. Though it may seem counter-intuitive, the frantic, “let’s throw in everything” approach doesn’t help with enjoyment, it’s like being stuck in the twilight zone with a comic who is constantly “on”.

Kong’s Night Out has a giddy, goofy appeal to it, with a cracker-jack cast. Cindy Kahn (as Sally, the Grandma) has a fabulous, raspy voice that could wither a garden of artificial flowers. Danielle Shirar (Daisy)with her marvelous, sunshiny grin, could be the next Zasu Pitts. Her optimism could clear off a merciless thunderstorm. John Hogwood’s Carl Dennam has a line of patter straight out of Phillip Barry or Dashiell Hammett, and keep you smiling all the way home from the theater. There’s a special technique to the back and forth of sharp-witted, rapid dialogue, and while some lines definitely had more of that distinctive pop, all-in-all, Kong’s Night Out was a sublime experience.

Rover Dramawerks presents: Kong’s Night Out, playing September 8^th– October 1^st, 2016. 221 West Parker Road, Suite 580, Plano Texas 75023. 972-849-0358. www.roverdramawerks.com

I’ve never cared for terms like “bittersweet” or “dramedy” as they obsess with labels, when literature resists such facile categories. Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa is a quietly electrifying, intensely moving memory piece (in some ways like The Glass Menagerie) in which Michael, illegitimate son of Christie Mundy, remembers when his family was in the usual upheaval, just before everything went completely sideways. Michael is the narrator, and in retrospect realizes that for all the brouhaha, the five Mundy sisters had each other, Michael, and the daft Uncle Jack, a missionary priest back from Africa.

Dancing at Lughnasa begins when Michael sets the story in motion, sometimes speaking as the seven-year-old boy, more or less oblivious to the deeper issues affecting the adults. His kites are decorated (perhaps unwittingly) with pagan gods. Indeed, eldest sister Kate, a devout Catholic in a Catholic household fights a persistent battle against (what she perceives as) the encroaching influence of paganism and idolatry. While she is vigilant and impassioned, she is not exactly a tyrant. She barely notices the kites, but forbids her sisters from attending the Lughnasa Festival, most likely because of its pantheistic underpinnings. When Uncle Jack returns from his mission in Africa, and begins to reveal his fascination and appreciation for those vivid, elemental religious practices, Kate’s worst nightmare takes shape. It’s hilarious, but we still understand her concern.

So much genius in Friel’s play. Dancing at Lughnasa mocks easy answers to the quandaries that plague the Mundy Sisters, while making us ache for them. Because we hate to see these vigorous, vibrant women hurting. Friel never leads us by the nose, he’s too subtle for that. But the celebratory nature beneath the travails and mischief, that we see so gloriously expressed in the title event (if only in the Mundy kitchen) leaks and brims and gets beneath our skin. The friction between sober devotion and pagan life-affirmation fuels this exquisitely realized, truly miraculous story of familial grace. Please understand. After years of seeing theatre, I know how difficult it is to capture authentic, overwhelming emotion in a way that actually reaches the audience. And stays with them. Directors Miki Bone and Frank Latson, and this inspired, precise, utterly involved cast have managed to do just that. Tears and mirth and implacable humanity. Do not miss this marvelous opportunity.

Contemporary Theatre of Dallas presents Dancing at Lughnasa, playing September 9^{th –} October 2^nd, 2016. 5601 Sears Street, Dallas, TX 75206. (214) 828-0094. www.contemporarytheatreofdallas.com

Sir Henry and Lady Angkatell are hosting guests for the weekend. Relatives and friends will be staying over to schmooze, dine and gossip. Not surprisingly, most (if not all) of them have overlapping pasts. While he perpetually snarls and barks at his wife Gerda, Dr. Cristow is having an affair with Henrietta and still carries a torch for screen actress, Verona Craye, his ex-fiancee. When Cristow is shot dead, Detective Penny and Inspector Colquhoun have their pick of viable suspects.

More often than not, playwright and novelist Agatha Christie rises above the obvious choice of killing the least popular character. But then, she practically invented the dinner party/murder genre, so she’s probably entitled. Not surprisingly, there are numerous red herrings, stolen kisses, tawdry trysts…to keep the intrigue level high and the audience absorbed. While Christie’s dialogue in The Hollow may sometimes feel less genuine than rhetorical, her undeniable gift for creating vivid, fully realized characters is what sets her writing so high above the endlessly pedestrian copycats that have been pilfering her successful archetype for years. They may create a variety of types, but rarely move beyond cursory gestures or demeanor.

Lady Angkatell (played by Cindy Beall) is undoubtedly the most entertaining character in this narrative. She casually makes the most outrageous observations, but somehow her charisma redeems the frank remarks no one else could get away with. If she said your new blazer was perfectly ghastly, you’d laugh right along with her. And she’s so absent-minded, when she tells the Inspector she can’t remember where she was at the time of the murder, he can’t believe she’s dodgy. Then there’s Midge, who refuses to coast on the family fortune, even though it means the degrading lot of working in retail. Henrietta is a sculptor who uses her talent to disclose unspoken truths about those closest to her. Christie paints an elaborate mural. Every detail doesn’t advance the murder plot. Her characters are not mere pegs on a game board or caricatures to be ticked off a list.

Theatre Britain always offers the audience a multitude of pleasures, from the precise British dialects, accurate sets and lavish gowns, to the splendid revelations of English culture and class protocol. [Wouldn’t I love to see them do Pinter?] The Hollow is certainly up to their usually impressive standards and a delightful excursion into shadow and mayhem.

Theatre Britain presents The Hollow, playing September 2^nd-25th, 2016. Cox Playhouse: 1517 H Avenue, Plano, Texas 75074. 972-490-4202. www.theatre-britain.com

Bishop Arts Theatre Center’s Third Annual LGBT PlayPride Competition is an intriguing mix, with an interesting approach. Alexandra Bonifield directed all six pieces, as opposed to using different captains for different ships. Some plays were forthright (if perhaps simplistic) while others obtuse, and not always easy to process. Some had an LGBT subtext while others were narratives which just happened to include gay characters. Another important difference: this year the playwrights win money (instead of “donating” their award) so lets get out there to Jefferson and Tyler in Oak Cliff and vote, vote, vote.

Copeville, the first play, by mystery playwright Addison DeWitt (yes, yes, yes, from All About Eve) is a memory piece, told from the view point of a young girl (“Narrator”) about her Uncle Berdie. Her Uncle (a Native American) runs the only grocery in a very, very small town in Texas. The girl loves to hang out at his store after school, happily taking care of her small tasks, and munching on candy. Berdie’s rich, genuine humanity, is evident in everything he does. He never turns down those in need of food, never judges others, takes joy in being kind. One day he reminisces to his niece about a friend who was “two-spirit,” sharing his tribe’s enlightened appreciation for someone who evinced non-binary gender identity. In this way he explains his own difference.

There are two ways to think of Copeville. We can bask in the pleasure of understanding that even in the Bible Belt, there are communities that recognize the value of every life, and simply care for one another while leaving God’s domain to God. The other is to speculate the possible outcomes had our hero not been quite so noble, or the question of his orientation beyond ignoring. Perhaps Berdie was doing the best he could with subjugation. Copeville though, does manage to pitch a canny scenario (with no violins or roses) for those who actually enjoy living in a climate of warmth and mutual respect. It never feels contrived or didactic. So I’m going with the former.

Ben Schroth’s You hear that? finds married couple Charles and Daniel settling down in bed for the night. Off and on they hear noises and voices, unsure what they mean, or what exactly is going on. Perhaps another couple making love? Or prowlers? Or gossip? One of Schroth’s great strengths is his subtle ability to imbue ordinary situations with extraordinary insight, the dialogue emerging from Charles and Daniel’s quandary a lens to explore their attachment. Daniel and Charles are just like any other newlyweds. They tease and flirt and josh and grouse. They give each other grief and cuddle. The punchline about their queer marriage is that it’s not especially sexy or remarkable. Like most marriages, it’s just sexy and remarkable enough.

Honestly by Caroline Cole is an epistolary story told by email, texting and voicemail. Perhaps it’s a fable on the irony that despite increasing methods of communication, the quality of human connection is quickly diminishing. Not once do we see any of the characters in the same room with each other. Georgia Bardman (a thuggy lesbian) has formed meaningful relationships with several women, who help her through a horrible bout with cancer. Honestly has a kind of witty cynicism to it, a reflection on the discrepancy between what we need to see and what’s there. Cole might be commenting on lesbian stereotypes or maybe just the pathetic trap of infatuation. Maybe same-gender sexuality here is merely parenthetical.

Ruth Cantrell’s Stall Tactics makes hay of the recent, ridiculous public bathroom debate, pairing Mattie Lou, a right-wing, conservative, gay-hating harridan and an old high school friend, Bev. When Bev attempts to use a unisex bathroom in a department store, Mattie Lou blocks her, proclaiming she must not participate in this recent concession to the godless “He/Shes.” Mattie Lou is hysterical, obnoxious, offensive and stupid. Those are her better qualities. On the downside Stall Tactics is a spoof, so it’s over-the-top, and prolonged. (Though I won’t deny it’s gratifying to see a self-righteous, Bible-thumping snot exposed). On the upside, Stall Tactics is often very, very funny and Cantrell uses the opportunity to consider the pathology behind Mary Lou’s toxic tirades.

If Fate Steps In, by Sierra McCarley, examines the time-honored riddle of the role of destiny or choice when it comes to romance. There’s a metaphor involving skin-markings (tattoos?) which leads one to think this may be speculative fiction. Jude and Emerson are on a fix-up date, and struggle to decide whether they are slaves to the cosmos or actually want each others’ company and comfort. I admire McCarley’s originality and desire to tantalize, but I’m not entirely sure the quirky milieu adds a lot. The resolution is smart and satisfying.

Shane Strawbridge’s Widgets is an illustrative parable in which two colleagues enter into a heated argument when it comes to mixing red widgets with blue widgets or packaging them separately. Strawbridge’s strategy enables us to see how preposterous this bellicose behavior truly is, by applying insane logic to inanimate objects. Widgets turns on two metaphors, the widgets, and a bouquet of discarded flowers, salvaged by the untainted perception of the manager’s young daughter. It might be a bit self-consciously enlightened, but Alexandra Bonifield helps with a fairly light touch.

TeCo Theatrical Productions presents: The Third Annual LGBT PlayPride Competition, playing September 15^th-25^th, 2016. 215 South Tyler Street, Dallas, Texas 75208. 214-948-0716. www.bishopartstheatre.org.

Marsha Norman’s ‘night, Mother is a difficult piece. Painful, frustrating, frank in its depiction of the broken world and Jessie’s decision to take her own life and share this plan with her mother, Thelma. Thelma’s attempts to dissuade Jessie are like tiny beacons of hope that nonetheless fail. Norman baptizes us in Jesse’s despair, it’s a bit shocking how plain the details and resigned she is to finally have some hand in her personal narrative, even if the outcome seems the very definition of a Pyrrhic Victory. Like, say, Leaving Las Vegas, where the protagonist is distracted just long enough to let us ache for some kind of reprieve, Mama desperately tries to convince Jesse there must be another way, and we, too, are caught up in the need to salvage this lamb, too discouraged to do anything but lay her neck upon the stump. It’s hard going, and Jesse’s calm, disaffected sense of purpose soaks into us like wet smoke. It’s chilling, really, how Marsha Norman pulls us into gradually into the abyss with Jesse, without, say, the bleakness or ballast of an Ingmar Bergman film. It’s as if the cheery, coziness of the familiar, domestic nest with its warmth and reassurance is there to throw the awfulness into high relief.

On an ordinary Saturday night, Jesse prepares to give her mother a manicure. She goes over her lists to make sure Mama has her groceries and candies to nibble on, and everything she needs when she will no longer be there to take care of her. Pretty early on, she tells Mama she will not be around much longer. At first her mother thinks she’s joking, but she catches on. After awhile Jesse’s refusal to debate, her explanation that life offers no respite from the steady succession of disappointments, soaks into our marrow like delicate voodoo. When Jesse runs to her bedroom and slams the door, Thelma bangs and pounds, hysterically. It goes through you like an ice dagger.

Jessica Cavanaugh (Jesse) and Amber Devlin (Thelma) are understated and authentic as they invite us into the relationship a mother and daughter create when they live together as adults. Jesse’s self-esteem has been so diminished over the years that any attempts to steer her vessel to benign waters seem pointless. We keep wanting her to climb into Thelma’s lap until that radiant embrace melts away all the woundedness and grief. Ironically (though I’m sure Norman knows) Thelma cares so much, it perhaps blinds her to the best strategy to save her daughter. She doesn’t know to translate her deep maternal love into purposeful action. Norman seems to be finding that Jesse’s one-way ticket to silence comes from her connection to Thelma, that even running away from everything she knows would be better than turning out the lights. Jesse doesn’t know how to be “selfish” though it just might save her.

Director Christie Vela, Cavanaugh and Devlin have collaborated to bring us this impeccable, somber nocturne. What glorious talent. Like me, you may find yourself grieving for that touching, inconsolable lamb.

Echo Theatre presents ‘night, Mother, playing September 8^th-24^th, 2016. Bath House Cultural Center, 521 East Lawther Drive, Dallas, Texas 75218. 214-904-0500. www.echotheatre.org