‘The Fly’ @ Hip Pocket Theatre
Photos by Shannon Atkinson
—Jan Farrington
“Help me, help me!” cries the tiniest of voices, whisked through the evening air of Hip Pocket Theatre and into the dark night beyond. And the cast breaks into a song that says it all:
“It’s The Fly! Buzz it up!”
HPT closes a hot 47th season—in quality and weather—with a riff on James Clavell’s screenplay for the wildly improbable sci-fi hit movie The Fly (1958). Fun fact: the original Fly short story, written by British-French author George Langelaan, appeared first in the June 1957 issue of Playboy magazine. (See? Your grandpa wasn’t just peeking at the centerfold.)
Adapted and directed by Shawn Gann, who clearly has a soft spot for this ripping yarn, HPT’s version keeps the French-i-fied 1950s setting of the original tale. (Is this Paris or Quebec? It doesn’t seem to matter.) Brilliant young scientist Andre Delambre (James Warila) is found dead, crushed flat in the hydraulic press in his workshop. Andre’s loving wife Helene (Aaron Knowles Dias) shoos away her bug-hunting young son Philippe (Sara Kate Barton) and phones her husband’s brother Francois (Grainger Esch) to tell him simply: “I killed Andre.”
After a natural sacre bleu uproar, Helene sits down to repeat those same words to police inspector Charas (Thad Isbell)—but that’s all she’ll say. “Coffee?” she offers brightly.
Hip Pocket stalwart Joe Rogers plays his original music onstage, including some bouncy, silly numbers plus a tender love song. All are delivered by Rogers’ musical sidekicks at the edge of the stage, Lauren Riley and Marcos Barron. After Helene’s story of Andre’s death, it’s a toss-up whether she’ll be declared hysterical or insane—but while the suits decide, Helene and Philippe keep looking for a particular fly with a strange white head and arm.
It’s clearly time for a plot twist, and voila, “It’s a Flashback!” whirls us to a few months ago, with Andre showing Helene his amazing scientific discoveries. Let’s just say he’s created a pre-Star Trek “transporter” of sorts that can send objects or living creatures through space—to be re-assembled at the other end.
Hmm. Will it work on an ash tray? How about the family’s pet cat? (That puppet-cat “meow” is clearly a feline “Help me!”) The onstage “special effects” keep the audience laughing; outer space seems to be full of helping hands. And of course, our scientist Andre makes one itty bitty human mistake—and if he can’t fix it, he’ll miss a lot of great French dinners.
Dias is an engaging Helene and an elegant dancer. (Choreography is by Frieda Austin with a contribution from Johnny Simons.) Warila switches easily between obsessed genius and loving husband. Esch, Isbell, and Ronald Fernandez (as a wild-haired doctor) bust some moves in a vaudeville dance turn, and Fernandez and Tyler Dorney run around like madmen (in the interests of science). Kristi Ramos Toler almost gets the fly, and we can just see Barton’s Philippe (nothing spooks this kid) taking up his father’s work—if only to put that cat back together.
Lake Simons created the puppets and masks, Susan Austin the costumes, and Jeff Stanfield the set cluttered with machines and controls—lit up in high sci-fi style by Nikki DeShea Smith. The Fly plays weekends through October 29, a retro romp for the spooky season that’s more likely to make you smile than scream.
WHEN: October 6-29, 2023
WHERE: 1950 Silver Creek Road, Fort Worth TX
WEB: hippocket.org
