‘Patti & Theo’ @ Ochre House Theatre

Photos by Justin Locklear

—Ann Saucer

Ochre House Theater, a Dallas gem of ferociously inventive alternative theater, serves up another darkly hilarious musical comedy, Patti & Theo, written and directed by company founder Matthew Posey. Set in mid-twentieth-century Brooklyn, this is the “story of two lovers who hold each other passionately at arm’s length.” The production is atmospheric and surreal, employing unconventional theatrical elements to deliver poignant themes. Patti & Theo is a terrifically thought-provoking production with a surprise around every corner.

Three musicians enter in a somnambulant procession, as if they are already passed out drunk. It’s funny, but just unsettling enough that the ensuing blackout grabs our attention. Via excellent sound design, we hear tapping, scratching, slurping, and high-pitched, frustrated mumbling as a pulpit eventually appears, moved upstage left under horror-movie lighting.

Posey’s extravagantly inventive brain brings us a moth-like cleric from the Middle Ages, Dr. Phalaenopsis (Lauren Massey), to narrate the story of a failing marriage. Massey is comically fastidious as she stares straight at the audience and reads the “miserable love story” from a scroll or liturgical tome. Dr. P’s arcane language is a humorous counter-balance to the Brooklynites’ twentieth-century cliches, which frequently pare down the dialogue to the raw moods of the characters.

Three entwined figures, Winken (Quinn Coffman), Blinken (Izk Davies), and Nod (Cameron McCloud), adroitly enter upright while also sleeping in long white nightshirts and caps. At this point we learn that the snoring musicians on the accordion (Matthew McNabb), percussion (Trey Pendergrass), and bass (Aaron Gonzalez) are all named Walter. The cast debates the right to poke Walter in the “swollen veiny balls.”

Patti (Polly Maynard) and Theo (Posey) enter amiably for their picnic at the beach. Being a Matthew Posey original, we are treated to the intersection of tortured souls and puppetry. (Students of Posey’s work know this to be a surprisingly vast intersection.) This time, the puppets are shadow puppets (from Janet Dodd) interspersed with shadowed silhouettes. Together they form a comic background to Patti and Theo’s sight-seeing. Industrial waste mangles the sea creatures, which include a terrified star fish and a skeletal sardine. Justin Locklear’s sound effects include the sardine complaining “my mother died for that sandwich” and some unhappy baby seals.

We see Patti & Theo’s camaraderie as they drink and imagine strange images hilariously revealed in the shadow-clouds. Patti serenades Theo with a ribald yet whimsical song about him—“a collection of seagulls flew out of your butt hole”—and the two band together in shared malevolence for swimming children. (“God, I hope they drown.” “Me too.”) Patti & Theo’s relationship is forged by common narcissism—the kids are there “just to annoy us.” And the couple bond over Theo’s new creed, just “be cool with yourself.”

Dr. P explains the family dysfunctionalities: Patti is a bad mother (Theo likes that about her), and Theo wanders the streets in “pursuit of the love of strangers,” aka dive bars. The production features numerous original musical numbers (tunes by music director McNabb, lyrics by Posey, w/ additions by Maynard) in a variety of genres, superbly performed by the Walters. The singing is beautiful and the lyrics are frequently haunting, as in Patti’s lament to “keep a drop of poison mixed with the hope in your heart.”

Samantha Rodriguez Corgan’s costumes are authentic to the time period when they need to be, and gloriously inventive when not. As Patti & Theo’s screaming children, Coffman, Davies, and McCloud are decked out in ratty T-shirts and impressively oversized diapers. Patti’s asymmetrical gloves become a plot point.

Maynard’s considerable acting abilities include playing a comic drunk, and her expression is truly crazed as she uses the children’s heads for drums in a rousing musical number. All three “kids” are great at back-talking dad when he finally comes home, and Coffman is poignant and adorable in alerting Theo to Patti’s behavior.

Theo gets Patti a gig at a new beatnik bar. She is a new woman, incorporating Theo’s “be cool” motto into her hilarious deadpan performance: “Trapped between capital C and a lower case L are a couple of O’s.” Meanwhile, Theo is alone at the beach, arguing with the moon over whether he misses the wife who used to sing only for him.

In the second segment of the show (“Epiphany”) Theo works to cripple Patti’s singing career, getting inside her head to remind her of the weakest parts of herself. Shadows show Theo devouring her, so that she is all his own once more, unable to sing for the world. Posey’s mercurial gravitas is on full display: smiling Theo can fade into the woodwork, or transform (after bottles of gin) into a hulking Mister-Hyde menace too big for the space.

Posey knows how to write a dark comedy, exploring tragic themes through absurd shenanigans, making us care about characters we would otherwise judge harshly. Patti & Theo are sleepwalking through life, realizing they are too late to start over. Massey is convincing as the strange Dr. P., who criticizes “the senseless pursuit of meaning” when we need to learn to love.

Typical of the Ochre House, Posey’s set design is a master class in maximizing an intimate space. Two lawn chairs sit at the beach downstage right, in front of a curtain that Dr. P. manipulates to create the shadow puppet screen. Most of the space is Patti & Theo’s ramshackle apartment, kitted out in authentic mid-century period pieces: a Frigidaire, frilled curtains, tasseled tablecloth, and of course the ever-important martini shaker. The color palette is a beautiful combination of grass green, saffron, and cerulean blue. The once majestic gold striped wallpaper is authentically stained. A picket-fence transom echoes the beach’s picket fence. An intricate light design (Kevin Grammer) accommodates the shadow puppets and silhouettes, at times placing the entire set into stark shadows, emphasizing the haunting mood. 

Patti & Theo is another in a long line of not-to-be-missed Ochre House triumphs. Come for the puppets and music, and leave with a new commitment not to sleepwalk through life. The production runs through May 18 at Ochre House Theater near Fair Park in Dallas.

WHEN: May 1-18, 2024
WHERE: 825 Exposition Avenue, Dallas
WEB: ochrehousetheater.org