Thursday, March 28, 2024 Mar 28, 2024
73° F Dallas, TX
Advertisement
Publications

Theater Crimes Against Audiences

"The New Arts Festival’s Tooth of Crime was a welcome, but flawed attempt at avant-garde theater in Dallas."
By

Avant-garde theater has finally reared its ungainly head and thrown its crumpled fedora into the circle of top hats comprising the bulk of theater in Dallas. Much to the benefit of us all.

Sam Shepard’s The Tooth of Crime, the dramatic main event at the recent Dallas New Arts Festival was a somewhat self-indulgently flawed attempt, but a sincere and welcome one at that (as was the entire arts festival). Staged in a sculptor’s studio on Exposition Avenue, the evening was a success more in spite of than because of. The easy, carnival atmosphere, the lack of pretension, the aura of artistic freedom eventually more than compensated for too many weak, sloppy or simply non-existent production standards and the sheer linear direction of Christopher Nichols.

The Tooth of Crime is a familiar plot wearing a hard rock, Clockwork Orange coat. It’s the story of Hoss, a leather-clad rock and roll denizen of a not-too-futuristic society where the Meaning of Life is a golden record and killing is the primary means of achieving it. Hoss was once the King, but the King is dead, long live the King. Time has caught up with him. There is a new sound in Hoss’ reclusive sanctuary, brought by an acid emissary named Crow. Hoss and Crow duel to the death. The outcome has been in the charts all along.

Despite its ambitiousness, Tooth defied the adage “all we need is an open space and we can have a play.” The work cried out for spectacle. Granted, funds were undoubtedly minimal at best, but spectacle can be accomplished on a shoestring if the director is up to it.

In this case, the production needed to be staged in the round. Director Nichols knew he had only a flat floor to deal with, that people would be sitting on that floor, that there would be inevitable sight problems. An arena format would have helped immeasurably. The blocking was another culprit: It consisted mainly of maniacal pacing back and forth (arena staging would have added some variety, by the way). Pacing is important, but it does not a character make.

The music was too loud. Volume works in a discotheque where the lyrics don’t matter, but this was a play and words did matter. The very important three-round rock duel between Hoss and Crow became simply unintelligible.

Finally, the script was rough – more like a work in progress than a finished play. Songs were thrown in with little thought to continuity or structure. There were two endings. Unfortunately, Nichols saw fit to use them both, allowing the performance to trail out in fifteen extra minutes of empty philosophizing and discourse. The first ending, with Hoss crumpled on his throne while Crow stares down at his pathetic figure and the band sings an oldie-but-goodie, was almost magnificent, but ultimately failed because Nichols then reverted Crow to a gum-chewing, finger popping usurper to an empty title and Hoss a pathetic, obsolete leather-jacketed piece of rubbish. Again, oh God, again, we had been told what we had seen and what it meant. In the telling, the message was ruined.

Tooth was a good display for local acting talent: Bruce Rodgers Wright as Crow imparted all the necessary cocksure virility called for by the role; Sara Baker was noteworthy not because of her insipid Becky Lou, but for her scant two or three minute faceless-girl-in-the-backseat routine, a bit of power and intensity; David Nichols as Hoss unfortunately looked better than he acted, but Nichols – an extremely competent and unsung actor in the area-undoubtedly would have grown beyond his strut-and-pace-it caricature had the play run for some length.

The Tooth of Crime was worthwhile, if only because it added a sorely-needed dimension to Dallas theater. Avant-garde theater is always a beneficial kick in the pants to more timid, legit theater, because it is a kind of theater not grounded solely on entertainment value.

Such theater definitely has a place in Dallas, as do events like the Dallas New Arts Festival, under which Tooth and a number of other ambitious, innovative artistic works were produced. But for it to succeed and sustain, the people who run it will have to arrange more time for themselves, generate more backing and foster the hard-nosed self-discipline necessary for communication in theater.



Moliere’s The Physician in Spite of Himself is probably one of the funniest plays in the history of comedy. SMU’s recent production of it, however, came off more as a bad joke, and only a small part of the blame can be chalked up to the youth and inexperience of the actors.

Charles Richter misdirected this Moliere classic with pseudo Mel Brooks inexpertise. A pity he couldn’t have picked a better influence. He had his cast try every slapstick trick in the book without thought to selection, timing, pauses, finesse or technique. He fell prey to overstatement in the play’s one serious scene, refusing to let the poignancy of the scene speak for itself. Once again we were belabored about the brain-pans with a message inherent in the script.

The cast must have had a grand time working on the show. They certainly had a ball performing it -so much they forgot about the audience. Seldom have we seen actors so pleased with themselves, so busy telling us how utterly clever and delighted they are. The broad, exaggerated carica-turizations only served to cover up the fact that hardly anyone on stage knew how to speak, Duncan Hollo-man and Cam Wolff being the only exceptions. At that, Miss Wolff played dumb until the third act, her only line until then being, “Woo woo, honk honk!!”

Despite the overkill, there were some laughs other than those bestowed by friends of the players. John Rainone’s bit with the singing trees was funny, and he managed a cute turn or two opposite Donna Jackson’s startling decolletage. But it wasn’t enough.

Most important is the knowledge the students must have gained from their Physician. They learned it’s easy to mug and cover up shaky technique with cheap, manufactured and out-of-context bits. They learned you can mask deficiency of speech with speech defect. They learned you can get away with a lot if you simply go fast enough. They learned how easy it is to cop out by doing a classic so flagrantly mod and kinky that all sense of form and content are lost.

We don’t suggest studied, slow and stultifying productions (zaniness and lunacy are what we looked for and wanted), but the fact of the matter is technique, speech, pace, form and content -not anarchic theatrics -are the true liberators of comedy. Sadly enough, SMU’s Physician trod a narrow path between shoddy burlesque and sheer stupidity.



Inherit the Wind is without doubt the most substantial achievement from the pen(s) of Lawrence and Lee. It may be the only one. But under Lawrence’s inauspicious direction, this heavily-touted Dallas Theater Center production smacked of a self-inflicted wound.

Most of the Theater Center cast was brutally misdirected. For example, the townfolks’ big evangelical scene, led by a poor man’s Elmer Gantry, resembled more a Transylvanian mob than real people caught up in pente-costal frenzy. Of the big two, only Preston Jones’ Drummond emerged unscathed. Jones must have snuck in his singular tour de force while the director wasn’t looking. Barry Hope’s firebrand Brady looked believable and could have been so, had Lawrence demanded more from him than oratorical boisterousness.

As for the physical staging, we never sensed the oppressive heat. Fans waved with incessant, gay abandon, to be sure, but never defeated the cold blue lights on the set. Space doesn’t permit a longer list.

On the twentieth anniversary ofthe Margo Jones premiere and the fiftieth anniversary of the Scopes”monkey trial,” Lawrence told TheaterCenter first nighters this productionwas “the definitive version of Inherit the Wind.” What better response thana quote from another playwrightwhose Hamlet mutters with a sigh, “…words, words, words…”

Related Articles

Image
Arts & Entertainment

Arlington Museum of Art Debuts Two Must-see Nature-Inspired Additions

The chill of the Arctic Circle and a futuristic digital archive mark the grand opening of the Arlington Museum of Art’s new location.
By Brett Grega
Image
Arts & Entertainment

An Award-Winning SXSW Short Gave a Dallas Filmmaker an Outlet for Her Grief

Sara Nimeh balances humor and poignancy in a coming-of-age drama inspired by her childhood memories.
By Todd Jorgenson
Image
Football

Joel Klatt Is Pumped for the UFL

The league's first-ever game goes down Saturday at Choctaw Stadium.
Advertisement