Theater Review: So There & Orange Oranges

by Shawn Parikh

It’s always pretty intriguing when Project X puts on a show. Their work is very innovative with the use of mixed-multimedia and experimental, thought-provoking, in-your-face works. So what better venue for them to present two shows than the Festival of Independent Theatres (FIT Festival) at the Bath House Cultural Center?

Writer/Director Thomas Riccio has concocted two twenty-minute shows, So There and Orange Oranges, that perform one right after the other. What gives these shows its Project X-ness is both are set in Dallas and tackles the problems/situations with our community in a tragicomic manner. Also, Riccio stated that these two performances are the first installments to 22 other fragments he will be premiering for Dallas in the coming year.

So There starts off the double-bill as it follows a group of three teenage girls at a Dallas mall as they point out everything that is wrong with our teenage subculture, mainly its superficiality. A marketing executive follows them around (serving as the audience’s perspective) to assess their likes/dislikes, and concludes that fashion, fame and money are the highest on the totem pole. When a boy enters the pictures, we learn about other pressures surrounding teens and what we tend to ignore.

The production is hilarious at the start since it seems as if it is going to be a variation on Mean Girls. However, it gets redundant with their obsession of looking good, but this actually garners some introspection. You can only laugh at shallowness for so long until you realize how true to life these girls are because of the media obsession with the Britneys, Paris’s, and Lindsays of Hollywood.

The three teenage girls (Alex Stein, Jacquelyn Mabry, and Brittany Goldman) portray their characters well with a ton of “like”s and “OMG”s thrown into their vocabulary every few seconds, and you realize you could walk into Northpark Mall and see so many of these types. Although they are a little over-the-top, that is kinda the point and you really end up feeling bad for them. As the marketing exec, Sarah Boland-Taylor does a sufficient job in narrating and as Tyler, Ben Connors gives us a burst of humor and tragedy when he makes his appearance right towards the end. The show will definitely leave you thinking.

In Orange Oranges, we meet a married couple in a psychiatrist’s office who are trying to deal with the husband’s obsession of blood and murder, especially with the word “KILL.” The wife is a domineering successful businesswoman who wears the pants. Throughout the show, we unravel their symbiotic-but-sick relationship, their strong Christian morale, and anger and stress caused from living in Dallas.

The piece is quite entertaining since it gives a bold look into a couple’s private life that at times you cringe at how truthful they are being, but also laugh because of the discomfort. You end up baffled by the end and really hope that you don’t know couples like this, even though at moments, you know you do.

The 3 actors in this show are older than the So There youth and are able to provide much depth with their characters. Again, we get an audience perspective through the psychiatrist played by Jaclyn McLoughlin. The only qualm I had with her was she sat facing away from the audience most of the time making her barely audible. She needed to project just a little more to match the voices of the couple. As Leonard, Brad Hennigan gets another meaty role to sink his teeth into and does a fantastic job. He goes from a vulnerable idiot to a frightening monster in a couple of seconds, but is so committed to them that we buy his crazy demeanor without a doubt. As Lucille, the striking Lori McCarty has the looks to seem sweet and successful, but when she unleashes her dominating power over Leonard, we actually become terrified. She counters Hennigan extremely well and their chemistry plays off each other beautifully, yet scarily.

Design elements in both shows are minimal letting us concentrate on the action of the story. In Orange Oranges the characters are much more dimensional making it more intriguing, but the eye-opening truth and stats in So There leave you feeling helpless. Both shows do a great job in provoking and I have to say, I am very excited in seeing the other 22 installments about Dallas that Riccio has left to devise.

The 2008 FIT Festival runs through August 9 and you can click here to see a complete festival schedule. To purchase tickets, call 214-528-5576.