Austinist Review: When Something Wonderful Ends
Through 6/1, Th-Sa @8pm, Su @5pm
The Off Center (2211-A Hidalgo)
[info] | [tickets]
And a hostess she was, Barbara Chisholm, greeting patrons at the door with a peppermint and a 1000-kilowatt twinkle of a smile. In this one-woman show, Chisholm charms from start to finish, fully engaging the audience effortlessly. That's no mean feat considering much of the subject matter is heavy fare, weaving together a convincing argument that the war in Iraq is all about oil—and that it's time for us to grow up and move on to some other fuel source. One not so drenched in a horrific, devastating past.
The piece's lighter notes come via stories about the narrator's childhood framed by a fascinating survey course in the History of Barbie. Anyone who played with the ubiquitous doll will love the trivia packed into this work, and the glamorous outfits and vintage gear Chisholm uses to accessorize her bubble-cut Barbie are a trip down memory lane. The show jumps around in fits and starts—intentionally abrupt changes of pace—as it juxtaposes Barbie and her petroleum perks with a comprehensive overview of the last several decades of the oil trade.
The latter is fascinating, though we found it hard to keep up. Indeed, just a few days after seeing the show, we happened to engage in conversation about the war and we longed to repeat Something Wonderful's salient points. From start to finish, the piece builds a cause-and-effect proof that America's involvement in Middle Eastern politics is motivated almost exclusively by our need for fossil fuel. It's the same tired story trotted out all time...but in this case the story is anything but tired. It's fresh and fascinating.
The production is packed with talent, and it shows. Katie Pearl directs what is a challenging, stop-go piece. Piles of Barbie paraphernalia alone make the show unbelievably prop-heavy, yet Michael B. Raiford gives us a believable, half-packed living room—not a stage with all the right presets in all the right places. Lowell Bartholomee drops period tunes of just the right tempo that stayed in our ears for days following. And that names only a few; Red Then Productions and Rude Mechanicals have assembled quite the team.
Plenty of people don't want to think about the war; we read recently that "books about Iraq don't sell." Yet the Rudes had a blockbuster hit with their recent remount of Get Your War On, and once again they're behind an up-to-the-minute political piece that entertains while at the same time slaps you in the face to wake you up to the political climate's harsher realities. We attended the show with someone we consider conservative; he found the analytical nature of When Something Wonderful Ends compelling and convincing. See the show to bask in Chisholm's sparkle and to check out Barbie's groovy gear, but take away a great night of thought-provoking theatre.
