Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 6, No. 40, Ed. 1 Friday, February 2, 1990 Page: 16 of 28
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\Theater
Disgracei Perplexing yet
entertaining production
O’KEEFE SCRIPT PRESENTS THE ACTION IN A SERIES OF SHORT SCENES
Tuesdays
BEER BUST
9-2, only $3
Thursdays
HAPPY HOUR
ALL DAY
$ 1.50 Longnecks
$1.75 Well
75 C Draft
Fridays
WILD, WILD
NIGHT
$1 Longnecks
Open to Close
Weird DJ
Saturday
Showtime 10:30
$1 Well 10-2
Sunday
BEER BUST
4-11
Best music in town!
Dawn’s famous chicken
and potato salad.
Coming Feb. 10.
“SWEETHEART
DANCE"
Winning couple gets dinner
for two.
Reviewed by JERRY GARRETT
Theater Critic
iven the surreal, dream like
B nature of John O’Keefe’s play
Disgrace, perhaps it is appro
priate that I dreamed about this
show last night. In my dream, though, the
three women who populate Disgrace got all
mixed up with the witches from MacBeth,
chanting over their cauldron.
I don’t for a moment believe that O’Keefe’s
trio are witches, but they might just as well be.
Nothing about this script is absolutely certain.
Disgrace, now onstage at Undermain
Theatre, is played out in a series of maybe 20
short scenes depicting three women making
their way up the side of a mountain. The
scenes might be in chronological sequence,
but then again there could be some jumping
around in time. Hard to say.
The setting would seem to be England, or
possibly some other bucolic European locale.
The ladies’ lovely full length Victorian dress-
es and broad-brimmed straw hats suggest a
period piece, but later talk of cars and the
garish neon flash of a Coke Classic can shatter
that illusion.
The ladies may be enjoying a simple picnic
outing, but they may also be escaping an
insane asylum. They may have conspired to
murder their common lover, Francois, al
though the motivation for this is unclear. Two
of them probably have murdered husbands
as well, and at least one of them is probably a
lesbian. But, again, nothing is certain.
I suspect that this script makes little sense
on the printed page. In production, it is both
entertaining and mildly frustrating, like a
jigsaw puzzle with a few key pieces missing
and maybe one or two extra pieces from
another puzzle altogether thrown into the
box besides. The show is also very funny,
although much of its humor seems to rise not
O’Keefe may be
dramatizing the
problematic nature of
women’s relationships
with other women. Or he
may just be dramatizing a
weird dream.’
from the script itself but from Raphael Parry’s
clever direction or from the unusual line
readings his actors have found.
If I didn’t know Katherine Owens to be one
of the brightest, most canny women in Dallas
theater, I would swear she was a total ditz, so
convincing is her portrayal of empty-headed
Christine. Kateri Cale, as Katherine, brings a
full-bodied, earthy sexuality and cattiness to
her character. And Lisa Lee Schmidt ably
conveys the ambiguities inherent in Simone,
the flashes of coldness and cruelty tempered
by vulnerability, as when she torments the
others with her vivid descriptions of Francois’
underwater lovemaking, but then cries fright
fully when she thinks she’s been left alone.
O’Keefe may be telling us something about
the problematic nature of women’s relation
ships with other women, especially where
competition for may attention gets in the way.
Or he may just be dramatizing a wonderful,
wierd dream. Either way, it’s good theater.
Robert McVay and Robert Winn turn in their
usual excellent lighting and set design work,
and Bruce Manilla’s beige costumes are ex
quisite. I also should mention that Under
main’s new Deep Ellum performing space is
roomy and comfortable and should make a
nice permanent home for this talented young
theater company.
Production Information
Disgrace’
By John O’Keefe
Raphael Parry, director; Bruce OuBose,
assistant director; Robert McVay and Robert
Winn, set and lighting design; Bruce
Manilla, costume design; Bruce DuBose,
sound design.
CAST: Kateri Cale, Katherine Owens, Lisa
Lee Schmidt.
WHEN: Through March 3; Wednesdays-
Saturdays at 8:15 p.m.
WHERE: Undermain Theater, 3202 Elm
(comer of Elm & Trunk).
TICKETS: $6-12 Thurs-Sat. (Wed. is ‘Pay
what you can’ night). For information and
reservations, call 748-3082.
We’r
e Making
One Bedroom
$349
o 24 Hrs
;ss}
lag
3706 Whe
£ler Street □ Dallas, Texas 75209 □ (214
) 520-8883
16
THE DALLAS VOICE/FEBRUARY l. 1990
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Vercher, Dennis. Dallas Voice (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 6, No. 40, Ed. 1 Friday, February 2, 1990, newspaper, February 2, 1990; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth615709/m1/16/?rotate=90: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.