So Ova It

And then there's that house they live in. Wow. Scenic designer Michael Yeargan has built a palatial, extravagantly furnished two-story home for the play's poor schoolteacher. This wouldn't matter much except in the scene when Joe nearly dies and someone has to run down the block to use a phone because Bri and Sheila can't afford one. How'd they manage that fancy sofa and chair?

The tempo picks up briefly in Act 2 when new characters enter. Dallas actors Jessica D. Turner and James Crawford effectively embody the boorish, Socialist-minded middle-class couple who bring Sheila home from a play rehearsal. They're embarrassed at the sight of poor Joe but get swept into an emergency they'd rather not be part of. Later still, Sandra Shipley injects some much-needed pizzazz as Bri's pushy mother, who keeps reminding them how pretty Joe would be "if she were up running around."

It's a long slog till the final curtain. Surely Bri couldn't possibly spout another monologue. But he does as the playwright (who based the play on personal experience with a disabled child) tacks on another 10 minutes. And then another 20. The play slows to a grinding stillness and then to a final thud of an ending that leaves the viewer wondering what went so wrong--Play? Acting? Directing?--to keep this Joe Egg from being all that it was cracked up to be.

Think Joe Egg feels interminable? The first act of Second Thought Theatre's production of Caucasian Chalk Circle crosses time zones.

In the small black-box space in the same Addison theater complex that currently houses WaterTower Theatre's gigundo production of Urinetown, the Musical, Second Thought stages Brecht's drama, which is based either on the biblical story of Solomon or a Chinese folk parable, depending on which source you check. (And neither sounds like much fun, does it?)

In a time of unrest in the country of Grusinia, a baby finds its way into the arms of a peasant named Grusha (played, for no good reason, by four different and unmemorable actresses). As the woman attempts to get the child to safety, she must dodge soldiers, other peasants and falling bridges. When the governor's wife claims the baby is hers, a trial takes place to determine parental rights.

That's the stripped-down explanation of a play so confusing that I stopped trying to figure it out. And worse than Brecht's stilted and cryptic dialogue about Persian wars and how many piasters it takes for some raggedy-ass peasant to buy a few sips of milk is director Stan Denman having his 17-member cast, all dressed in dull, ripped-up muslins, scream lines in unison at the tops of their lungs. They also sing a lot (original, very bad music by Allen Robertson). Plugging my ears barely dampened the din.

When intermish finally rolled around, I checked my watch to see if it was time for breakfast. Actually it was only 9:30 p.m., and the crowd next door was just returning to their seats for Urinetown. I slipped in with them and happily second-acted that show just to remind myself what good theater looks and sounds like. For all I know, Chalk Circle is still going around and around.