Saturday, December 1, 2007

Theater Review: A Bur-Less-Q Nutcracker

By Alexandra Bonifield

Cracked any nuts lately?

Ho ho, ho-hum. It’s that time of year again. Every live theatre company hoping to rake in a pile of safe bucks subjects us to another dose of incarnations of Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchitt, wise-cracking elves, small saccharine women, not so wonderful lives, and wooden kitchen tools that come to life to dance romantically to fin de siecle classical music written by a depressed Russian “sensitive.” How to avoid diabetic overdose? Visions of decapitated sugarplums…

Wait! There’s a remedy! Out at Addison’s Stone Cottage Theatre, Mark-Brian Sonna Productions offers the perfect antidote. The (fictitious) Beulaville Baptist Book Club presents A Bur-Less-Q Nutcracker serves up a holiday trifle that oozes enough succulent sensuality to make nightie-clad Isadora Duncan blush. It’s a wafer-thin plot where respectable best intentions go way, way awry; but you won’t notice because you’ll be laughing so hard. Mark-Brian Sonna’s many talents tend to put him in the comic league with Steve Martin and the best of Benny Hill. Who knew he could dance ballet, too?

Act I is the setup and played a bit slow on opening night. The Book Club matrons have inadvertently poisoned the legitimate ballet troupe engaged to perform a benefit Nutcracker Ballet for their flagging book club. To save the day, a traveling bevy of burlesque dancers (look, don’t touch) steps in and bumps and grinds an irreverently refreshing version of the danced-to-death Tchaikovsky. Use your imagination. The Russian folk-based musical score worked like a charm. It was hard to hear actors’ lines delivered in Act II for the roars, howls and guffaws emanating from opening night’s full house audience. MBS Productions offers the unusual, the risqué, the thought-provoking as a standard fare. Their new holiday show is no exception!

Mark-Brian Sonna portrays a somewhat mentally-challenged hick dude named Dickey, with a penchant for eating bananas and dancing the two-step while watching his brother’s porno flicks. Finding himself cast in the role of the Nutcracker, surrounded by gyrating, half-clad, leggy beauties, opens his personal horizons in amazing ways. He steals the show. Aside from his impeccable comic timing and ability to deliver the tightest double entendre lines in N. Dallas, Mark-Brian actually keeps pace with the talented, well-schooled dancers creating the burlesque bevy. And can they dance!!! The playing space is narrow; but the gals twirl, soar, leap, and boogie down in perfect cadence and rhythm without the slightest hesitancy. It’s an unforgettable send-up, as are Mark-Brian’s cheeky buns clad in snug lilac tights. Kudos to choreographer Jana Edele and first-time director Jared Culpepper. Dancing provocatively as the Velvet Kittens are: Tiffany Hillert, Lisa Streiff, Corin S. Reyes, Abby Adkins, Tami Christensen and Monica Dollar.

Versatile comic actresses Sherri Small Truitt, Bethany Hubbard, Susan Davis and Caryn Spaniel, whose hair gets huger in every scene (a la Young Frankenstein), round out the cast. They make a sweet ensemble, playing off each other believably and realistically, functioning as a catalyst for the raunchy fun and source of conflict. The show needs them to connect the plot to the over-the-top Velvet Kittens’ routines.

MBS Productions’ A Bur-Les-Q Nutcracker transcends the conventional with gleeful tawdry delight and sends its audience out into the night with ho ho ho holiday hubba-hubba. Boogie on down for some XXX-mas seasonal cheer.

Purchase tickets online or by calling 214-477-4942.

Alexandra Bonifield is an independent arts critic & advocate for performance art.

See more stories in:

• Arts > Fine Arts > Theater > Musicals
• Holidays > Christmas Season

Comments

Scott Doyle Verified

Nice bump, chief. I forgot all about this.

9 months, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Mark-Brian Sonna Verified

Well, I can't help but write in...seeing that I'm the playwright. Many people who came to see the show 2 and 3 times (one person came 4 times) began to realize that behind all the "outrageous" humor there was more to this play that in your face farce. For all it's spoof I wove into it a deeper and more philosophical and moral set of questions. Some audiences were able to put their finger on it, others couldn't quite, but left with the vague comment "there's more to this then just the comedy, but I can't quite put my finger on it." So what was I weaving into it? While a few have figured it out, I'll never tell. Those who are familiar with all my work picked up on the "weightier" themes rather quickly. This said, they also commented how this play was the best at "masking" them. Also, no one died in this script! But I digress.... I believe it's best to leave "it" to the audiences. It's there if you want to look into it, or if you want to just simply enjoy the comedy as is, you can. While you may not perceive the "message" or "moral questions" or "philosophy" the script actually explores because I've masked it all with humor, I do believe it's this more "serious" undercurrent that helps prop the play up and makes it suitable for repeat viewing whether the audience member, director, or actor, realizes it or not. I mean, lets face it, the repeat audiences got the jokes the first time, the play would bore after the second go round, so why come see it a thrid time or fourth?
I like my audiences and actors and directors to sit and digest my plays long after they've tasted them. The biggest compliment I can ever receive is when someone wants to talk about a play I produced a while back since it has stuck with them.
I had one critic write once how much they enjoyed a play of mine a year after the show had closed while writting a review about a current show of mine. The funny thing is this critic had given the original production a lukewarm review. In another instance a differnt critic quoted lines from a play of mine to critique a play by another playwright, he too had given my original play a lukewarm review, but was now not just quoting it but referencing it in a glowing light. Both of those plays originally had been dismissed by those critics as lacking substance. I was pleased to discover that while it took them a while, they realized there was more to it then what met the eye. Yes, BBBC Nutcracker is silly and a romp, and should be enjoyed as such for that is it's purpose, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have that something "else".

9 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )