Out in the Arts

by D. L. Groover

ALBEE KIDS YOU NOT

If you think nothing in our jaded "whatever" age can shock anymore, no taboos that haven't been flaunted by way of Jerry Springer, here comes Edward Albee, America's greatest living playwright, to blister the wallpaper-and our minds-with his latest Tony Award-winner The Goat or Who is Sylvia? Played concurrently at the Alley Theatre with his first great success, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (with an intensely blowzy yet sympathetic Judith Ivey as Martha and a suppressed volcano in James Black's co-dependent George), Albee's latest blackest-of-black comedy is a distillation of all his prodigious theatrical gifts as well as a wicked postmodern spin on Greek tragedy (great man with tragic flaw, the shattering effects on wife and son, a Greek chorus of one, even a Dionysian goat-the Sylvia of the title and the hero's love interest).

The play amazed in wonderful, horrible ways as it sped inexorably from confession through consternation to a grieving fate-filled conclusion. Words can wound, and Albee, through his profound craftsmanship, stings with shocking taboo-busters that stop time while our hearts break. Todd Waite embodied the guilt-free, besotted Martin with lively befuddled angst and had us believing he's the next logical choice for PETA poster child. Elizabeth Heflin unleashed all the wifely Furies with sexy perfection. Matt Hune, a student at HSPVA, made a stunning professional debut as conflicted gay son Billy; and Alley stalwart James Belcher, spouting expletives, was society's outraged conscience. This most adult play about finding love in the most peculiar place was haunting. If you were fortunate to see this splendid production, you will never forget it.

DEAD WIDOW

You know something is really wrong when the most memorable highlight of an opera is the dancing. It took a bevy of Maxim girls, squealing, hiking up their petticoats with legs a-twirl, and cart wheeling across the stage, to blast me awake during Houston Grand Opera's shockingly low-brow version of Franz Lehar's 1905 operetta confection, The Merry Widow. This explosion of action and color irradiated the surrounding dullness with energy, sex, and a sweeping pas de deux that crystallized the love story in a more profound way than anything the molasses-paced, lumpy production could dream of managing.

Lehar's intoxicating melodies have bubbled into our consciousness, but in this production borrowed from San Francisco Opera, his beguiling waltzes were swamped under B-grade regional theater schtick. Sad to say, mezzo Susan Graham, with her patented creamy voice so astonishing weeks ago in the fiendish ornamentation of Handel's Ariodante, made no impression at all. One of opera's reigning divas, she seemed decidedly unmerry and uncommanding, not traits the widow Hanna should possess.

Baritone Bo Skovus, a picture book Count Danilo, came off best, but he too joined in the Saturday Night Live low jinks with only half a heart. Both were given no help at all from conductor Patrick Summers, who approached the soufflé score as if it were a memorial service. Where was the bounce, the lilt, the fizz in the champagne? Christopher Hassall's maladroit English adaptation shared much of the blame, with its doggerel rhymes and a lame book without a sprinkling of period flavor or charm. Even if your taste in champagne knows but Korbel, HGO's stab at Lehar's delicious froth was, at best, stale beer.

KEEP IN MIND

• The Four Temperaments. Houston Ballet. Through March 9. One of Paul Hindemith's greatest musical compositions becomes the framework for one of George Balanchine's greatest neo-classical ballets. Its dance movement, like the music, is refined, elegant, and powerful beyond words.  If you're not moved by the arching lifts of the finale, you are dead.

• You Can't Take It with You. Alley Theatre. Through March 29. Kaufman and Hart's delicious screwball 1936 comedy pits convention (the uptight snobby Kirbys) against anarchy (the reprobate wacky Vanderhofs). Guess who wins?

• The Noblest of Drugs. Infernal Bridegroom Productions. Opens March 20. In a world premiere collaboration with the inventive Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre, IBP presents the life and times of Stanislaw Witkiewicz, exceptionally gifted Polish writer, painter, photographer, dramatist, architect. His work, which included the theory of pure form and the belief in "catastrophism," or the disintegration of civilization, inspired the theater of the absurd. He would have loved the puppets.

• Where's My Dinner, Bitch? Dos chicas theater commune, at Helios. Through March 22. From the gals who brought you the greasy yet tasty Vampire Lesbians of Sodom, Porn Stars Gone Bad, and Zastrozzi, the Master of Discipline, comes this world premiere not-suitable-for-children satire from Bob Morgan. Trailer-trash husbands die while their put-upon wives put on better lipstick. Bitter and black like the sneering mouth to hell.

• Dirty Blonde. Stages Repertory Theatre. March 19-April 13. Claudia Shear's inventive, witty look at Mae West and the legendary power of dreams to transform lives has been a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic. Come up and see her. Hollywood rules.

If you have any comments about this article, please email them to letters@outsmartmagazine.com.