Monday, January 14, 2008

Theater Review: Nipples to the Wind

By Alexandra Bonifield

Texas sayings possess a picturesque, earthy quality that sets them universes apart from their more refined cousins, from Paris, France or Minneapolis, for example. They also have a pervasive honesty, which when stripped metaphorically bare, resonates in your soul. “Nipples to the wind” is that sort of saying, an utterance urging the listener to proceed bravely forth, "chin up and chest out." It’s also the aptly named title of a masterful two-woman tour de force stage play currently making its Dallas premiere at Tim Shane’s Dallas Hub Theater in Deep Ellum, running Thursday through Sunday until February 24.

Part Tuna, Texas for Gals, part Vagina Monologues, all uniquely irreverent yet completely respectful of all forms of female incarnation, this play has made a huge hit from New Haven, CT to Augusta, GA, from Tulsa OK to Santa Barbara, CA. When it played at McKinney’s Performing Arts Center (MPAC), a 450 plus seat venue, in 2006, shows sold out routinely, with the exception of one Sunday last October, when the Cowboys were playing and only about 200 diehard theatergoers turned out, or so claims their website.

Nipples to the Wind presents just under two hours’ worth of humorous yet thought-provoking vignettes, slices of everyday life in the everyday worlds of fourteen female characters of various ages, sizes, cultural backgrounds and ethnicities, plus two extremely funny hand puppets. The dynamic aunt-niece team of Paula Coco and Dallas resident Janye Anderson create all roles. Paula, also the playwright, worked fourteen years as a stand-up comedian in front of tough, sophisticated audiences in New York and won multiple awards and accolades for her work and directed and taught acting at the New England Academy of Theatre. She is one of those rare actors who can completely transform herself before the audience’s eyes. One moment she’s a middle-aged sweatshirt clad frumpy mom--suddenly she’s a love-smitten teeny bopper with hoop earrings and no boobs—then she morphs into a twenty-something, gum-popping, self-absorbed, busty Latina suicide hotline worker. In every role, she‘s compellingly believable; physical comedy is a very fine art in her creative domain. It’s hard to call my “favorite” character: her vivid depiction of a Little League mom pushed over the edge by the opposing team’s parents’ chauvinism and crude prejudice is worth the price of the ticket alone, yet her mom with a teen daughter reliving her own teen experience by attending Ron Chapman’s “Sumpin’ Else” live TV show at Northpark Mall is equally breathtaking. Both scenes create complex realities through humor and pathos and display elements of universal truth accessible to audience members of all ages, all genders.

Janye Anderson & Paula Coco

Janye Anderson’s characterizations are more internalized but equally compelling. She demonstrates a naturalistic ease on stage that pulls focus in close. Her quiet understatement unexpectedly opens the show with a hapless Happy Hour skit and carries through her tortured Substitute Teacher scene (the most political and culturally subversive in the show), working in compliment and contrast to Paula’s broader portrayals. Actor’s Gym founder Reno Venturi, with many national award-winning stage and film direction and teaching credits on his distinguished resume, provided outstanding professional direction.

Who should attend this show? It embraces everybody—it’s for Highland Park junior leaguers, Log Cabin Republicans, elected officials, blue collar sanitation workers, Quaker elders, Al Gore and O’Reilly supporters alike, high school sweethearts, Thai restaurateurs, Yankee transplants as well as Dallas natives, same sex parents and anyone who has ever had a sister, a mom, a niece, a wife (or an ex) or a female best friend in his or her life. Strap on your best Victoria’s secret, or burn it, if you so choose. Chin up, chest out; turn your best front to Deep Ellum, where they’re “conquering the world, one nipple at a time.”

Call 877-238-5596 for tickets.

Alexandra Bonifield, independent theatre critic and arts advocate, plans to wear her souvenir Nipples t-shirt with glee.

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