You can half-believe that Theatre Too, Theatre Three's underground black-box space, is a bunker from the falling bombs of failed expectation and miscommunicated feeling in Raymond J. Barry's Once in Doubt, a Southwest premiere from New Theatre Company. The low ceiling and close proximity between actor and audience make everyone huddle together under the explosions. Barry is an extensively stage-trained character actor who seems to have taken the occasional supporting role in movies to finance his more exploratory theatrical endeavors. These include theater workshops in New York penitentiaries that evolved into a full-fledged dramatic ensemble of ex-cons, and an association with two of theatrical convention's most unrepentant offenders, playwrights Joseph Chaikin and Richard Foreman.
Once in Doubt has a conventional narrative with washes of experimentalism that collect around the edges of the angry action. Unlike, say, the most free-form of Chaikin's and Foreman's work, this bruising study of a marriage between two very self-absorbed people lets you recognize characters, contexts, and motives, and maybe even sympathize once you fall into the comedy's strident groove--which, of course, you either will or won't. The strange part is the emotional nakedness of this husband and wife, their sheer infantile honesty; the experimentalism is the playwright's scraping away of all the polite conversation and rational self-deceptions. He shows us bloody bone and marrow being exercised in the pursuit of happiness. These people never say anything less than what they feel from the moment the house lights go down, but since we can tell immediately that there's little chance of connection, we understand this will be no politely naturalistic portrait of a disintegrating marriage. Under the direction of talented Dallas actor T.A. Taylor, New Theatre Company's show is as crisp and startling as a whip-crack.
As in the best theater that offers you something surprising and at first a little perplexing, the key here is the same as with Beckett--don't dig too deep for meaning. As you watch the exchanges between Harry (Jim Jorgensen), an abstract expressionist painter obsessed with his art, and Flo (Charlotte Akin), an artist's wife fed up with her husband's obsession, you will come to see that they veer recklessly between rageful complaints and woozy romanticism. This is, once again, just the dichotomous experience of many relationships boiled down to its primitive components, its magnetized polarities, and its glistening theatrical guts, presented for you, dear ticket- buyer. There's nothing else for you to fuss over.
Director T.A. Taylor has placed his audience inside Harry and Flo's New York loft. We are separated from these gurgling, cooing, brawling grown-up babies by one stretched-thin canvas--Harry works on a giant painting, a collage, that is the fourth wall, the invisible screen that separates actor and audience. He is a belligerent pain-in-the-ass, to say the least--a man who paints while hopping, crouching, and swaying in as physical an exorcism as you imagine Jackson Pollock undergoing. He is painting to contain what he later admits is a "scream inside my head." Flo is clearly sick of not being noticed enough, which makes you think she's alternately narcissistic and just plain self-destructive; still, she shows more flashes of concession, of negotiation, and of desperate desire to keep the relationship in one piece.
Their furious, profane pas de deux has an unresponsive trois in Harry's invisible painting, treated almost like an only child. But ultimately, it proves an insufficient point of shared conflict. They want to paint the stormy story of their short marriage on a canvas of human flesh, and Mr. Wagner (Carl Savering), the poor sap who lives nearby in the same building, is a big, dumb easel: He hears the commotion, comes inside to check and see if everything's OK, and gets served copious vodka drinks. The rest is marital infamy, as Harry and Flo attempt to hurt each other using the blue-collar Mr. Wagner as their weapon of choice.
All three actors in New Theatre Company's Once in Doubt do outstanding work, but Jim Jorgensen as the painter who cuts his own wrists to supply just the right color deserves special mention. This is the most focused, clarified work I've ever seen Jorgensen deliver. He has always been an able actor, but has sometimes swallowed the more emotional moments in the subtler roles he's played. He'll be OKtill things reach a fever pitch, then he starts to sort of mutter and mumble. This whole production is pitched at a feverish pace, and Jorgensen skillfully delineates between the big moments and the less big--a hairsplitting distinction, you may think, until you see another actor straddle the demands of this raucous material and his own instincts toward self-indulgence. Jorgensen doesn't succumb. Akin is predictably fluent in the language of heartbreak and confrontation; it's a dubious honor to declare anyone an anchor, but her tart professionalism ensures every production will have one sure thing. Luckily, here, she's not the only sure thing. Carl Savering proves he can pull another variation on the working-class lug from what is apparently a full hand. He is as beautifully, achingly out of place in this artist's loft as the man and wife who inhabit it are doomed to stew here.
Once in Doubt runs through October 3. Call (214) 871-3300.
Banter
You say you pity underpaid, overworked theater critics? Unlike policemen and firemen, who get plenty of fresh air and the opportunity to meet all different kinds of people, critics must spend hours every week in dark, silent theaters scribbling notes and then, later, record their opinions for public perusal. It's a calling to which only the ignoble--er, I mean noble--respond.
Well, just ask yourself what kind of masochist--um, I mean theater lover--volunteers to become a nominator for the Leon Rabin Awards, the fifth annual Dallas theater citations from the Dallas Theatre League. Unlike your beloved Dallas critics, nominators are duty-bound to see every production from all 30 Theatre League members and rate them in a variety of areas. So a particular show could have really stinko lead performances, but great sound design. Leon Rabin nominators must stay and contemplate the sound design.
Jo Trizila is the first-time chair of this year's Leon Rabin awards, whose nominees were recently announced and include finalists in Actor, Actress, and Director categories such as Richard Hamburger, Bruce Dubose, Susan Sergeant, Pam Myers-Morgan, Raphael Parry, Jeanne Everton, Charlotte Akin, Terry Martin, Tina Parker, and other Dallas talent whose names are familiar to anyone who regularly reads this space or that of Tom Sime, Lawson Taitte, or J.H. Johnson. The awards will be presented along with a special tribute to Theatre Three founder Norma Young (T3 is not a Theatre League member) and a presentation by the very rich composers of The Fantasticks, Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, who'll be performing for the event on November 2.
"People ask, 'Isn't it just a popularity contest?'" says Trizila, who explains that five nominators and three alternates composed the nominees list before it was sent to Dallas Theatre League theaters and the actors, designers, and directors who toil over them. They are asked to vote only for shows they've seen (which often means their own). "And I say, 'Well, how do you not make it something of a popularity contest?' The Oscars and the Emmys are a popularity contest. We try, at least, to combine people's choice awards with a small nominating pool. People say actors work regular jobs and do their art in this city, but many of the actors I know find the time to see other people's work."
Trizila readily acknowledges that the Dallas Theatre League, like all volunteer-driven, nonprofit groups eventually do, has reached a transitional phase where it's in need of new blood. She is pleased to say she's attracted seven new members for key roles who've never been involved in a theater volunteer capacity before. ("Do you want to volunteer for a table committee?" she asks me, only half-joking. "As a critic, you can't vote, but you can help arrange the table settings.") But it's very difficult to find volunteers who can commit the time required to see everything they have to see. Things will change after this year, simply because they have to.
"Kurt Kleinmann [the Theatre League president] is worn-out," she adds. "It's a tireless, thankless job that we believe is important--to have an official recognition of Dallas theater talent, of all the artists who live and work here; there are so many who make up this scene. We believe that the Dallas arts will be less without this peer recognition. Next year, we're going to ask that all theaters who want to be considered for a Leon Rabin have one person sit on a Theatre League committee. You have a lot of theater companies who want to put their 30 cents in, but they're less willing to volunteer. We're going to ask that they participate not just in the voting, but in the planning."
The Dallas Theatre League presents the Leon Rabin Awards November 2 at the Irving Arts Center. Call (972) 252-
