XL WEEKEND REVIEWS
'The Kingfish,' 'The Night Hank Williams Died,' The Oklahoma Snorkel,' Tania Pérez-Salas Compañía, 'Ring Rip Rent,' 'Benjamin Butler: New Trees and Forests'
Monday, November 06, 2006
THEATER
LARRY L. KING RULES AUSTIN PLAYHOUSE WITH NEW STAGE
The Austin Playhouse opened its new season and renovated smaller theater in the same vein, with Texan journalist and playwright Larry L. King. The Playhouse's second stage now more comfortably accommodates audience members and actors, and was renamed to honor King. Appropriately, the inaugural production of King's "The Kingfish" about Huey P. Long runs simultaneously with the main stage's season opener of King's "The Night Hank Williams Died," the play that cemented the writer's relationship with Playhouse director Don Toner during the 1980s.
Williams never makes an appearance in the story, other than through the jukebox in the corner of Gus Gilbert's ever-empty bar, but he represents everything that Thurmond Stottle aspires to. However, Stottle can't leave the small town of Stanley to realize his pipe dreams until a reunion with Nellie Bess, his now-married sweetheart, spurs him to Nashville.
But Gus is the real hero. Michael Stuart plays him with a such a hangdog slouch and squint that he becomes a part of his shack of a tavern, emerging to pop off genial Texanisms or offer countrified advice. And when tragedy strikes, Gus rages and then falls silent, but Stuart's laughably glum countenance becomes as powerful as a tragedy mask.
While the acoustic dampening isn't perfect — a few gunshots and screams echo into the Larry L. King Theatre — Steve Shearer takes control as the late Huey P. Long, remembering his life, career and assassination. At his best, Shearer is as charismatic as Long was famed to be, weaving anecdotes and cracking jokes. But when he moves into polemic or slips on his lines, the act slows down. And as with any spin wizard, that's when the curtains fall.
("The Night Hank Williams Died" and "The Kingfish" continue 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 5 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 19. Austin Playhouse, 3601 S. Congress Ave. Bldg. C. $10-$25. 476-0084, www.austinplayhouse.com.)
—Joey Seiler
INSTALLATION ART
LOVE SONG TO EAST TEXAS WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR
Buster Graybill's artistic output stands as a big valentine to the region he loves: the rural and semi-rural corners of Texas. A native of the East Texas piney woods town of Conroe, the University of Texas graduate student uses the vernacular objects of his home turf — deer feeders, outboard motors, catfish, inner tubes — to fashion minimalist-inspired conceptions.
Just don't let the cerebral approach fool you.
Graybill's art is about as far away from detached high-brow as you can get. Nor is it regionalism coated with a self-applied veneer of kitsch — a tactic so favored by regionally identified artists of the 1980s.
No, Graybill is sincere and thoughtful — and he has a gentle sense of humor.
For "The Oklahoma Snorkel," now at the Donkey Show, Graybill's transformed the street-facing wall of the private home cum alternative space by inserting carefully twisted arrangements of giant black truck tire inner tubes into the three windows. Like giant balloon toys, the trio of contorted tubes pop out on the street side making for a startling interruption on the otherwise ordinary stone bungalow. Inside, the tubes protrude into the gallery, hovering over sculptures such as "Faster Than A Rubber Duck," a water-filled metal livestock trough with an outboard motor attached to one end, and "Southeast of the Panhandle," a metal frying pan, its handle pointed north, a smattering of tiny metal catfish in the southeast quadrant of the pan.
It's the stuff of Graybill's childhood, reconsidered and rearranged in an inventive and sweet manner.
("The Oklahoma Snorkel" continues 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesdays and noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays through Dec. 10 at the Donkey Show, 1706 Poquito St. Free. 740-2824.)
— Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
MODERN DANCE
PIECES FROM MEXICO CITY COMPANY WASH AWAY EASILY
Long, stretched legs and well-pointed feet could not save dance company Tania Pérez-Salas Compañía from monotony Thursday. The Mexico City-based dance company, performing at Hogg Auditorium, displayed much technical ability, but few choreographic or physical impulses.
In the evening's most memorable piece, closing work "Waters of Forgetfulness," a shallow pool of water covered most of the stage. Dancers soaked themselves and each other with almost-erotic splashing, but their actions quickly grew repetitive. One after another each tossed his or her head backwards, sending water flying in a streaming arc. The motion was beautiful a few times, but could not anchor an entire piece.
Choices in all three of the evening's works felt random: in "Waters" and "Anabiosis" two couples danced, but never had any relationship, nor did they decidedly ignore each other. As they moved in unison, the question hung: "Why are these four dancers doing this movement?"
The thin nature of the work was not a question of a lack of narrative — dance does not necessarily need a story — but more one of motivation. "Anabiosis" hinted at a relationship's journey from sensuality to relaxed intimacy, but the dancers did not seem compelled to tell the story. Program notes for opening piece "The Hours" promised a work that displayed "internal overflow, which gives birth to dance," but the utter lack of cause and effect in the choreography belied such a relationship.
Pérez-Salas' musical choices felt random as well. In "Anabiosis" Bach and Handel randomly fade mid-way through concertos.
— Clare Croft
THEATER
IS THIS THE FUTURE OF WOMEN'S RIGHTS?
Martha Lynn Coon's "Ring Rip Rent" does what good art should: It leaves the audience with lasting images and more than a few things to ponder. But I was left wondering more about the play's inconsistencies than its strengths.
The setting is just a few years from now, but women's reproductive rights have been completely rescinded. Five women institutionalized for their violations of society's code of sexual conduct are given a way out: to stage a performance for the institution's board. If the board likes it, the women inch closer to freedom; if it doesn't, they stay put.
Betsy McCann's character, Frankie, is chosen to direct the performance, but none except the most senior member has any acting experience. Fortunately, the actors bring an impressive share. Tiffany Nicely-Williams delivers a touching performance as the deceptively innocent Vincent. Amie Elyn's jaded Erma explores sexual issues through physical comedy, as well as the quirky and energetic Praline, played by Elizabeth Doss.
Ann Marie Gordon's set looks more like a factory than a mental institution, but perhaps the circa-2010 setting lends enough creative license for that to pass. Chad Salvata's industrial sound design was a little distracting at times, but at others provided a nice cushion for otherwise awkward silences. Jason Amato's lighting design — fluorescent tubes strung from black wires at incongruent angles — accomplished the ascetic feel required of the script.
"Ring" raises seemingly far-fetched but pertinent questions. Female identity is explored in a place where ovaries can disappear overnight without consent. Coon describes her play as "a cross between 'Cabaret' and a Sylvia Plath poem." Though a fair share of well-placed stripping is involved, I don't think it warrants "Cabaret." The Plath comparison is more apt.
("Ring Rip Rent" continues 8 p.m. Thursdays–Saturdays through Nov. 18 and Sunday. $10-$30. The Vortex Theater. 478-5282.)
— Sarah Rigdon
PAINTING
PAINTER BLENDS INFLUENCES APTLY
Kansas-born, Brooklyn-based Benjamin Butler pulls on a bunch of seemingly disparate sources to create his latest suite of paintings now on view at Lora Reynolds Gallery.
The painter gives us colorful, easel-sized portraits of trees, distilling the natural forms into colorblock lines of vibrant colors, inserting backgrounds of simplified blocks of color or neat grids of lines.
Yes, there's really a distillation of many modernist traditions going here. There's the bustle of color and pattern paintings, the simple forms found in minimalist, the striking swatches of color culled from the colorfield painters, the economic yet vigorous brushwork common to much modernism. There's even a touch of kitsch and pop with lines that boogie or zigzag arrangements that border on psychedelic.
But really Butler's just part of the continuing trajectory of American landscape painting. His precise, formal compositions have more to do with reverence and appreciation for nature than a cerebral objectification. Compelling and sweet, Butler's "New Trees and Forests" are idiosyncratic homages to the beauty of nature.
("Benjamin Butler: New Trees and Forests" continues 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturday through Dec. 2 at Lora Reynolds Gallery, 300 West Ave. Free. 215-4965.)
— Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
