‘Testing Ground 3 + 3’ @ Hip Pocket Theatre
Photos by Shannon Atkinson Cahoon
—Jan Farrington
A quick review, because Hip Pocket Theatre’s late-summer “New Works Festival” opened last night, is here today—and quite literally gone after tomorrow.
Testing Ground 3 + 3, a pairing of three short plays (each about 15-20 minutes long) with three different directors, has the company’s shortest run of the summer (September 15-17), but the intriguing trio of works leaves a nice after-image on the mind.
Two of the shows feature wolf and coyote calls, one’s full of butterflies and owls of Death, and another is so heavy-footed it might as well put an elephant or two onstage—though that wouldn’t suit the gravity of the piece.
JoAnn Gracey’s Red, directed by Erica Harkins, is a riff on the “Riding Hood” tale, but adds an extra generation: a “granny,” her daughter, and her grand-daughter (Kristy Toler, Lauren Riley, and Gianina Lambert) are all manipulated, sniffed, and obnoxiously bothered by a wolf (Jeffrey Farrell) who invades their personal space like anything, and seems to have enough trickster magic in his fingers to freeze them in place when he needs to speed up his nefarious plans. Eventually, we note that each of the trio of women wears a red ribbon, perhaps a sign of their sistership in the endless centuries of “why won’t he go away?” It’s amusing, but not, and we wait to see if the ladies will stop trading baking tips and fling some red-hot #metoo action his way. And yes, always baking powder in the chocolate-chip cookies, not soda.
Rob Bosquez’ Mariposa Skyway, directed by Madelyn Weynand, is a Texas tale that its playwright says was “written specifically” for Hip Pocket’s outdoor setting—and the open sky above the stage. Young couple Jett and Eddie (Katherine Collins and Walter Steven Dagley) are hiking at night through a star-lit but isolated Texas landscape, heading for Eagle Pass, stopping to dance for a moment, then hurrying on, as Jett says mysteriously, “to catch up with the mariposas (butterflies).”
In another thread, a butterfly (Liliana Garcia) gets stuck in a web, and forest-dweller Tess (Priya Chaudhari) stops an Owl (Amanda Reyes) from taking the butterfly’s life. Her “freeze” of the Owl’s work (its job, apparently, is to end the lives of creatures whose “time has come”) creates a hitch in the giddyup of the universe. Things are messed up, and we’ll have to wait and see how (or if) they can be put back in order. The gentle script is very evocative of its setting under the wide and high “skyway” of Texas, and the ending (though well foreshadowed) is a sad, sweet surprise.
Shelby Griffin’s dark and compelling Concrete Shoes, directed by Christina Cranshaw, is the most surreal of the night’s offerings—but its strong visual and aural presence makes it a memorable “closing number” for the festival. Frieda Austin, Jozy Camp, and Jeff Stanfield play a mother, teen daughter, and father in a world we don’t want to recognize as our own. Clad in gray jumpsuits (apparently the drab, unvarying uniform for home, school, and work), the three wheel around the stage, connected by a great white cloth, performing routine morning jobs (teeth, hair, etc.), and finally laying the cloth on their breakfast table. They slump, exhausted, over the surface, then clomp off to find three chairs—and we notice, suddenly, their heavy, reverberating footsteps. Concrete shoes, remember?
It becomes clear that none of them wants or enjoys their lives—but only the mother (Austin) is fighting back, her movements frantic until her strength gives out. Dad denies his oppression: “I am not weighted down. I am grounded.” Will any of them break out of the rock-hard confinement they were trained up to expect and accept? When one pair of “shoes” comes off, we are visually startled by a runner’s freedom and lightness of being. The playwright notes we might not find answers within the play—but rather, some hard questions to ask ourselves.
WHEN: September 1-3, 2023 @ 9:00 p.m. (come early and stay late for pre/post-show music)
WHERE: 1950 Silver Creek Road, Fort Worth TX
WEB: hippocket.org
