THEATER REVIEWS: Fusion's show a standout at Out of the Loop
LAWSON TAITTE Theater Critic
Published: March 6, 2006
ADDISON - The first weekend of WaterTower Theatre's Out of the Loop Festival is proving this fifth
edition to be the most exciting, and most outrageous, to date.
Opening night, the host company's This Is How It Goes had elements to offend anybody. A glossy
production left the audience too breathless to complain.
Theater Fusion's Evolution, performed Saturday, echoed this pattern, but in a comic key. Jonathan Marc
Sherman's play follows Harvard University grad student Henry Tollman (Daniel Jamieson) as he goes
with his girlfriend, Hope (Elizabeth Van Winkle), to visit her family in Los Angeles. Sheltered from
American pop culture by his father, he enters Hollywood innocent of the basic knowledge of this world
new to him. Hope's dropout brother, Ernie (Todd Haberkorn), sees Henry's ignorance as a resource,
using him to make a pitch for a TV sitcom.
Director Andi Allen's production gets a great start with narrator Nye Cooper, putting on a droll British
accent. The performances are all terrific - especially Mr. Haberkorn's manic rant as he comes up with his
big plan. But its blasé attitude toward sex and drugs means that Evolution might well put off some folks.
The scene where Mr. Cooper (playing Hope's father, one of many incidental roles he takes on) has
phone sex with an actress named Gina (Carrie Slaughter) is especially potent.
The 90-minute show also makes enormous technical demands, all nicely met.
Stage One Productions is also a start-up group, but the folks who put together From the Book of Merrill
(also reviewed Saturday) are mostly old hands on the Fort Worth theater scene. In Natalie Gaupp's
world-premiere script, psychologist Bennett Merrill (Seth Johnston) deals with a patient (Keri Ann
Sternin) who believes she's the second coming of Christ.
The premise is worked out in an arresting fashion, but director Dennis Sloan's cast seldom makes the
situations convincing. The exception is Lorenzo Hernandez, playing a series of odd characters who keep
popping into the doctor's office. His rant toward the end nearly tops Mr. Haberkorn's. The other
performances improve in the second act - where, sadly, the writing starts unraveling. It would be
interesting to see this play reworked and restaged.
E-mail ltaitte@dallasnews.com
-The festival continues through March 12 at WaterTower Theatre, Addison Conference and Theatre Centre, 15650
Addison Road, Addison. $5 to $15, festival pass $50. 972-450-6232, www.watertowertheatre.org.
