Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 23, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, October 27, 2006 Page: 78 of 104
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style stage
In cold blood, but overheated
Interesting actors, subject matter can't melt the knotty plot of 'Frozen'
By Arnold Wayne Jones Staff Writer
One of the inescapable
ironies in the current pro-
duction of "Frozen," now
in the downstairs space at
Theatre Three, is the dis-
connect between the title
of the play and the
temperature in the
auditorium. The low
ceiling and bright
lights quickly raise the
mercury so much that
the audience could
very well think the the-
ater meant to put on
"110 in the Shade" and
lost its way.
This is not a minor
quibble. At last week-
end's preview perform-
ance, while frost formed
on car windshields outside, inside bodies swel-
tered. It's extremely difficult to get in the mood
for what should be chilling portrait of a cold-
blooded killer when you feel like you're going
through male menopause.
That might not be a problem if "Frozen"
weren't so often a tediously disorganized jumble.
The playwright, Bryony Lavery, faced accusa-
tions of plagiarism after the show opened on
A bereaved mother (Elizabeth Rothan, left) consults a psychiatrist Jennifer Pasion)
about confronting the child molester (Steven Pounders) who killed her daughter.
Broadway. One can only hope the structure of the
source material wasn't as convoluted.
The action, set on a sparse set, takes place over
20 years in Britain. The six-year-old daughter of
Helen (Elizabeth Rothan) disappears one day
while walking to her grandmother's house. For
five years, Helen burns a candle, hoping that the
girl is alive and well even if lost.
The audience knows better. Ralph (Steven
Pounders) seems like a charming nobody. But
he's really a child-molesting murderer, complete-
ly without remorse for his conduct.
"I only regret what I did is a crime," he says —
a line that might send chilblains down your spine
if you weren't sweating so much.
The problem with the play is certainly not in
the acting. Pounders, who most recently made an
effectively guilt-ridden Macbeth, shows equal
depth as a psychologically arrested pedophile.
Rothan, a master of accents, delivers her mono-
logues with heartbreaking power.
If the play concentrated on their emotional pas
de deux, separated by years and miles, it might
have worked.
But the story galumphs along, injecting details
about the personal life of Ralph's psychiatrist
(Jennifer Pasion) that detract from the central
theme. The doctor's theories about Ralph's ill-
ness are interesting; her infidelity with a col-
league is not.
In several ways, "frozen" resembles "Agnes
of God," another play about a doctor and a sweet-
ly insane person who kills a child. But where
"Agnes" used the crime as a jumping-off point
for exploring the therapist's feelings and those of
the other characters, here the back-story feels
extraneous and tacked on to pad otherwise inter-
esting subject matter.
There's a good one-act play located within the
text of "Frozen," but it's deeply embedded at the
center of a block of ice, constrained from reach-
ing the audience. And even the theater's temper-
ature can't thaw it loose.
Theatre Three, 2900 Routh St. Through Nov. 5.
Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays—Saturday's at 8
p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m. $25-^$3Q. 214-871-
3300.
'THRILL ME' BACK ON TRACK
Earlier this year, the Uptown Players decided to
expand their usual four-show season with a
"bonus" production — a limited run of the cham-
ber musical "Thrill Me: The Stoiy of Leopold and
Loeb." But it seemed as if it would never happen.
First, the Trinity River Arts Center experienced
an electrical fire the Sunday week before opening.
Not to worry: They would move it across the com-
plex to KD Studios Theater.
But then no — it turned out that, for technical
reasons, the production couldn't be moved there.
Putting on the show later in the summer also
proved undoable.
While it may have taken longer than expected,
"Thrill Me" will finally open Nov. 3 where it was
originally intended. Here's hoping this time the
production is luckier than poor Bobby Franks, the
innocent victim of the depraved killers.
— A W.J.
Trinity River Arts Center, 2600Stemmons
Frwy, Nov, 3-13, Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8
p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. $22-$25. 214-219-
2718.
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78 I dallasvoice.com I 10.27.06
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Nash, Tammye. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 23, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, October 27, 2006, newspaper, October 27, 2006; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth238932/m1/78/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.