Friday, August 29, 2008

Theater review: The Long Christmas Ride Home

By Arnold Wayne Jones of Dallas Voice

FLASH FORWARD: A young man (Josh Blann, front) gets AIDS in Stage West’s stimulating production of Paula Vogel’s play.

There used to be a slightly homophobic schoolyard joke that went, “Did you know the Smiths have three children? One of each.”

But in the world Paula Vogel creates in The Long Christmas Ride Home, now being presented by Stage West, it’s sort of true. The family here includes three kids, all under the age of puberty when we meet them, but who grow up to be: a slutty straight girl, her equally slutty gay brother and a prim lesbian — that is, one of each.

The play itself has almost as many personalities. During the opening night curtain speech, director Jerry Russell noted that the play was “pure theater,” which is what’s right and what’s wrong about it.

The show is divided roughly into two parts. In the first, the children are all played by puppets with a vaguely Central European look to them. They’re headed over the river and through the woods for an awkward Christmas dinner with the gramps. We see glimpses of the tense family life: Mother tapers her mouth into a sour pucker at all times, dad gets slowly drunk between lascivious thoughts about the neighbors. In the second half, we flash forward 20 years, seeing how influential these seemingly trivial matters have become to the children, shaping their later lives.

Vogel is better at crafting scenes than at constructing full-length plays. Here, she’s taken a cue from Romeo & Juliet, showing the adult siblings playing out their love lives in front of windows. Russell has staged some astonishingly risqué silhouette peep shows (gay shadow puppets perform cunnilingus and anal sex), both shocking and hilarious.

The production is better than the play itself, with tremendous lighting effects by Michael O’Brien and sharp shadow puppet designs by Jennifer Schultes. The performers also work well within the limits of Vogel’s presentational style, especially Josh Blann as the son predestined to move to the Castro District and contract HIV. Wonder how a lousy Christmas as a 10-year-old can foreshadow a reckless decision as an adult? You won’t when you see this stimulating show.

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