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Review
from The Dallas Morning News
Review:
'Vacation' overdue
UTD's summer fling basks in craziness
12:40 AM
CST on Saturday, February 7, 2004
By TOM SIME / The Dallas Morning News
"RICHARDSON
– Universities are thought to be bastions
of political correctness and cultural sensitivity.
But you'd never know it by the University
of Texas at Dallas production of Christopher
Durang's utterly outrageous comedy Betty's
Summer Vacation, which opened Friday.
Jokes about
rape, incest and dismemberment abound in
this inspired, gleefully tasteless romp,
which by far exceeds the nutty anarchy of
Mr. Durang's Beyond Therapy and
even the sheer lunacy of Laughing Wild.
In this more recent farce, he plunges into
the absurd conventions of situation comedy
to skewer human behavior and one of its
stranger manifestations, American life.
Terry Martin
pops over from Addison's WaterTower Theatre
to skillfully direct this anarchic but incisive
slice of madness. He has assembled a fabulous
cast headed by the grandly hilarious Mary
Anna Austin. Between her and Mr. Martin
– not to mention the demented playwright
– the students in the cast no doubt
got a whirlwind of an education.
The play
is set in an East Coast beach house with
a semaphore motif (a nice set by Mike Klongpayabal
and Jeff Stover), where a student timeshare
brings together the wholesome and sensible
Betty (Kristi Humphreys), her chatterbox
pal Trudy (Margaret Athene Chaplin), ever-horny
stud muffin Buck (Ryan Schneider) and painfully,
even suspiciously shy Keith (Bobby Selah).
The youthful
party might have been spoiled by the unexpected
arrival of the landlord and Trudy's mother,
Mrs. Siezmagraff (Ms. Austin), but she proves
as game for anything – indeed more
so – than the youngsters, and even
brings home a flasher (Rick Tuman) as a
dinner date. There's another bizarre twist
that mustn't be revealed here, but it turns
a particular sitcom convention into something
both menacing and unexpected.
Betty's
Summer Vacation, which premiered in
1999 and won an Obie Award, was remarkably
prescient in its seeming anticipation of
reality TV. Though some may regard its jokes
as cruel – this comedy is not for
the squeamish or the politically sensitive
– their benefit is clear: They force
us to look hard at our seemingly insatiable
cravings for sex, violence and entertainment.
But this is no morality or cautionary tale;
its main purpose is to split the sides,
and it's about time it got here to accomplish
its mission. "
E-mail: tsime@dallasnews.com
To
the Dallas Morning News page
Quote
from the Dallas Observer:
Take
a Trip
2/6
"Tell
me this isn't the best advertising pitch
you've ever heard for a play: "Betty's
Summer Vacation, a black comedy send-up
of America's insatiable appetite for scandal
and reality television, is a merry beachside
romp featuring murder, mutilation and charades."
Awesome. Anytime you can work "merry"
and "murder" into the same sentence,
you're onto something hot..." –
John Gonzalez
To
the Dallas Observer page
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