Lisa D’Amour’s world premiere Frozen Section is the perfect nesting doll to Catastrophic Theatre’s last production, the world premiere of Candice d’Meza’s Miss LaRaj’s House of Dystopian Futures. Both are surreal in construction, set in the not-so-distant future, preach to the converted, and play to the balcony. Matchbox 3 has no balcony. That’s a whole other problem.
D’Amour’s serious comedy occurs in a grocery store “on the edge of the world.” Although not stated outright, something horrible has happened in the world. Something disastrous, we’re led to believe. The characters never leave at closing, they bunk down inside the store, taking all their psychoses with them to bed. There are no exits at Tyler’s. It’s post-Sartre comedy.
They are the usual suspects you would expect in this kind of sci-fi-tinged drama, distilled into cyphers, archetypes, losers, one lone adventurer who wants to escape “to the end of the horizon,” and one sage, snappy coyote, who vapes by the dumpster and steals from the hapless patrons. He’s the nature outside, feral and untamed, perhaps changed by the apocalypse into this anthropomorphic wise-ass.
As played by Raymond Compton, much akin to Jarred Tetley’s fey Fye in Miss LaRaj, The Coyote steals the show whenever he appears, posed languidly near his garbage bin and dripping advice to his new friend Sage, the store’s cashier who dreams big (Clarity Welch). He prods her to leave by wily discretion, puffing away and playing coy. With his sly exuberance and cartoon exits, Compton brings this overly-long play to a semblance of life.
The other seven actors imbue their archetypes with all the finesse that director Jason Nodler handles with his own fine finesse. T Lavois Thiebaud, unrecognizable with a Wally Cox exterior of slicked-back hair, mustache, and Tyler’s uniform, as no-nonsense Shelf Stock Guy, is just as good – self-effacing and always in the moment, whether sweeping up the spilled Fruit Loops, just listening to the others as they fall apart, or being sympathetic in the extreme as The Wife (Jeanne Harris) makes a not-so-subtle move on him.
Catastrophic pro Jeff Miller, as Panic Attack, is all that and more, clutching his teddy bear as he despairs of being dissolved into mist. He brings his patented tics and every-man mannerisms to a guy falling apart, which makes his character all the more relatable and aching human. Noel Bowers, as the harried Manager who only believes what’s in his ledger, will get his comeuppance by a beating by Coyote. In a haunting scene, he disintegrates with a recitation, almost a litany, of female names.
The Butcher (Jovan Jackson) barely survives by the memories on his dead cell phone; The Baker (Rebecca Randall) knits her way through the disaster. When the coyote replaces her knitting needles with stalks of celery, she melts down in epic style. Whenever Abraham Zeus Zapata shows up in one of his multiple character roles – Retro Customer, The Trucker, UPS Guy, Plumber, Lady Customer – there’s a renewed freshness in D’Amour. In a funny touch, when he’s in the checkout line, he makes the “beep” sound as each item is sent through the scanner.
Catastrophic overlays this extended surreal farce with a clever set by Ryan McGettigan with its display cases on casters and a waterfall effect of neon tubes that ring the set, I assume designed by lighting wizard Hudson Davis. The sound work by Jonathan Harvey is exemplary, while Brandon Connelly’s music, especially at the opening, is evocative of Bebe and Louis Barron’s “electronic tonalities” score for the classic sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet.
The production looks great, it’s the overwrought play that falters. Many scenes in Frozen end abruptly just when they’re about to get interesting, or they refuse to carry the momentum forward. The play starts and stops, goes on too long, and eventually wears out its welcome by its very kookiness.
If your idea of hell is an H.E.B. sparsely stocked with out-of-date canned goods and filled with neurotic customers, some place you can never leave – except by flying cow, as Sage does at the end – then Frozen Section is the grocery store for you.
Frozen Section continues through April 19 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Catastrophic Theatre at MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit catastrophichouston.org. Pay What You Can.
