A Texas Carol, Part Deux
Let’s see, the last time we saw the Dinkle family at A.D. Players in A Texas Carol, beloved matriarch Mee-Maw has died at her East Texas farm on Christmas Day. To preserve peace and calm, granddaughter Gretta and her brother Erik keep this fact from the gathering relatives, each of whom is on the edge.
Everybody’s got a problem: sister Ginny, fragile and rather neurotic, has found love with a Canadian hockey star, to the despair of son Blake, a.k.a. Blaze, a screaming goth who hates everybody and misses his dead father; Gretta and husband Van are on the verge of divorce through Van’s gambling debts; their daughter Mya, proficient with guns and knives, writes a survival blog on how to live through the end of the world; brother Erik is a snarky ne’er-do-well pedaling get-rich-quick schemes.
There’s also a rampant squirrel, odorous kimchi brought by Ginny, plenty of Dallas and Canada jokes, sibling rivalry, and a soothing theme of redemption. Family dysfunction is given a sweet push into the holiday spirit when Mee-Maw’s gifts from the grave set everything right.
This gentle comedy, a big hit for A.D. Players for two seasons, is a bit like Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You. Naturally, a sequel was in the works, and authors Jayme McGhan and Kevin Dean (A.D.’s executive artistic director and artistic producer) deliver a lovely, lively follow-up with A Texas Carol, Part Deux.
It’s two years later and the dynamics have changed. Erik (Dain Geist), who always loved Mee-Maw’s farm, has inherited it if he can manage it for five years. Gretta (Elizabeth Marshall Black) and Van (Jeff McMorrough) have stayed married because Mee-Maw’s monetary gift has jump-started their once-failing business. Daughter Mya (Anna Flynn) has completely transformed as has her cousin Blaze (Ian M. Gallagher). No longer butch, Mya has found inner peace as a throwback to the hippie generation with patchouli oil, feel-good mottoes, and “nutritional identity;” while Blaze, now called Blake, has become vice-president of his college’s Republican union. The chains, metal, and platform shoes have disappeared. Black leather has turned into tweed. The two bicker over politics and world-order.
This is Ginny’s wedding day to hockey star and promoter Hugo (Kevin Crouch), but he hasn’t arrived due to a horrendous and terrifying snowstorm of one-eighth of an inch that has Texas paralyzed. His frantic phone calls to Gretta are neatly played on stage left with cell phone static and interference as blackout sequences. To calm down Ginny (Kara Greenberg), Gretta and Eric cook up another of their ruses – Hugo’s been here all the time, staying in the barn until the wedding and no one is allowed to see him. Hugo’s sister Brielle (Amy Mire), a fierce Canadian Mountie, has joined the celebration, and Eric falls hard for her. The handsome neighborhood rancher Dallas (Jeff Featherstone) arrives and sets hearts aflutter.
There’s a feral hog called Goliath on the rampage and a pregnant possum in the bedroom, while Texas references come fast and furious. Austin gets roasted as “the devil’s playground,” Dallas is in southern Oklahoma, that sort of humor.
Act I ends with Van being chased by the pig and comically pawing at the window. Ginny is none too pleased when she finds out she’s been lied to, and Hugo’s constant business dealings put her doubts about their relationship in jeopardy. Abruptly, she calls off the wedding, leaving Hugo utterly distraught. In the meantime, Mya reverts to her former killing machine and chases after Goliath with Blake in tow as bait.
Naturally, all is set right at the end. Ginny in her Christmas pajamas marries her “big big Peter Pan” under a hoopah (don’t ask). While the play takes a few pages to get going, once all the characters are in place it reveals its soft holiday-mood glow, abetted nicely by director Christy Watkins. There’s even an introduction video by A.D. veteran Marion Arthur Kirby, who played Mee-Maw’s late-in-life boyfriend Jerry in the first play, to keep everyone up to date on what has preceded.
Maybe next Christmas season, they will play both parts in succession as a special two-for-one performance? By then, who knows, there might also be another sequel waiting in the wings. That would be fun, too.
A Texas Carol, Part Deux continues through December 2 at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays at A.D. Players at the George Theater, 5420 Westheimer. For more information, call 713-526-2721 or visit adplayers.org. $25-$75.
The Nutcracker
If old Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, master film maker Cecil B. DeMille, and circus showmen Barnum & Bailey produced a ballet, it most certainly would be Stanton Welch’s The Nutcracker.
This is an epic extravaganza, from the pre-curtain commedia dell’arte balloon artists, samurai rats scurrying down the aisles during the battle scene, a dusting of live snow on the audience at the end of Act I, gorgeously-rendered costumes and sets by Tim Goodchild (the Stahlbaum house is a two-story belle-epoch mansion), a magic show that arrives by caravan and elephant, Red Cross mice nurses scampering through the trenches, hobbyhorse soldiers, cute bumblebees to accompany the Waltz of the Flowers, penguin and polar bear stewards in attendance of the Snow Queen, handfuls of snow thrown by the Flurries while dancing, the snake charmers off to the side during the Arabian dance, the Churchillian bulldog who introduces the hornpiped English, among so many other stage wonders.
The ballet even comes with its own sumptuous proscenium arch, all cherubs and garlands on bounteous display.
Let’s not forget the dancing. This is the Houston Ballet after all, dare I say, one of the preeminent companies in the world. There are multiple casts during the long run, and it won’t matter which one you see, all will astonish. The depth of talent runs deep, and Welch uses the entire company and Houston Ballet II artists and Houston Ballet Academy students to fill in the ranks. It’s a spectacular tour de force.
This is a very dancey Nutcracker. The Snow scene and Waltz of the Flowers is awash with color and life, vibrant technical dancing, all elegant and beautiful. And, of course, the Grand Pas de Deux is the technical knockout of the evening. In the performance I saw, Connor Walsh, the Nutcracker Prince, and Yuriko Kajiya, Sugar Plum Fairy, were the lead couple.
If a wooden doll were transformed into a dancing man, who better than Walsh to give him exuberant life? With his striking stage presence and perfectly formed double tours, he was the epitome of grace, charm, and strength. His partner Kajiya is ethereal and strong. No one in today’s ballet world can balance en pointe like she can. Yes, it’s a trick, but a mighty fine one indeed. Unsupported, she stood in attitude so long, the orchestra stopped to wait for her. The audience burst into thunderous applause.
With its leaping fish dives, multiple pirouettes, shoulder lifts, swooning catches, all embellished with Tchaikovsky’s most radiantly romantic score, this pas de deux is classical ballet at its finest. And no one does it better than Houston Ballet.
The little girl next to me was enrapt throughout, sitting on the edge of her plush seat thoroughly enjoying the show, laughing at the puppet mice and clapping in glee at the expertise. She seemed to really enjoy Tyler Donatelli as young Clara who sets this phantasmagorical ballet in motion. Poised and dewy, she takes command of the stage.
Young or old, this is the Christmas gift that keeps on giving. It is lush and exciting, glorious to look at, embossed in gold and red, and excitingly danced. Now that’s a ballet.
The Nutcracker continues through December 29. 1 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. December 1, 8, 15, and 22; 7:30 p.m. December 12-13 and 17-19; 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturdays and December 20, 23, and 26-27; 2 p.m. December 24; and 1 p.m. Sunday, December 29 at the Wortham Center, 501 Texas. Tickets can be purchased here for $22.50 to $240. Special VIP experiences are available for select dates for an additional $60 per person, which include receptions before and during the performance and a commemorative gift.
A shameless plug. If any little ones out there are intrigued by this ballet, why not buy them the hardcover book of the Nutcracker synopsis, illustrated with scenes from Welch’s classic by Terrell Eastman Sprague, and written by…me. It would make a lovely souvenir
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This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
