It's Only Life Sends a Singing November Valentine

Theatre Too romances tunes of John Bucchino; KDT takes dull journey with 26 Miles.

Comments (0) By Elaine Liner Thursday, Nov 17 2011

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Now consider a road movie as a stage play. That's what Kitchen Dog Theater has with its regional premiere of Quiara Alegría Hudes' 26 Miles. It's a road trip without the scenery, without even the road; just dialogue. And that's just one of its problems.

Hudes, who wrote the book of the Tony-winning musical In the Heights, has churned out a pedestrian drama about unlikable characters you wouldn't want to walk across the street with, much less watch drive from Pennsylvania to Wyoming. On a stage. With a steering wheel attached to a piece of plywood on scenery painted to look like a volcano. Sort of. Not really.

Jeffrey Schmidt

Seth Grugle, Jennifer Noth, Darius-Anthony Robinson, Erica Harte and Angel Velasco make sweet harmony in T2's It's Only Life.

Location Info

Map

Theatre Three

2800 Routh St.
Dallas, TX 75201

Category: Theaters

Region: Uptown & Oak Lawn

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Kitchen Dog Theater

3120 Mckinney Ave.
Dallas, TX 75204

Category: Theaters

Region: Uptown & Oak Lawn

Details

It's Only Life continues through December 11 at Theatre Too. Call 214-871-3300.
26 Miles
continues through December 10 at Kitchen Dog Theater. Call 214-953-1055.

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That's the journey taken by precocious 10th-grader Olivia (Allie Donnelly) and her unhinged birth mother Beatriz (Christina Vela) after the kid runs away from her dad (Ashley Wood) and his indifferent second wife (never seen). Instead of taking her back to her house, Beatriz drives them across the country because Olivia wants to see buffalo roam.

On the drive, the girl, who's lived with her dad since a nasty custody dispute a decade earlier, learns that her mom went to Woodstock, which Olivia thought was "an urban legend." And that her mom's second husband (Christopher Carlos) has another woman on the side.

They talk. Oh, how they talk. They describe scenery. That's fun. They encounter local color, like a South Dakota roadside food vendor (Carlos again) who spins an elegiac description of how his wife makes tamales.

But the longer they take to get to Wyoming, the more you wish they'd rev the engine of their invisible car, clasp hands and end things like the best road flick ever about two women: Thelma and Louise.