By MARK LOWRY
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
The first half of Dallas' eighth Festival of Independent Theatres gave audiences a full-bodied
taste of variety. The first four one-acters (the other four begin this week) offered satire,
poetry, searing drama and comedy -- sometimes within one title.
Echo Theatre went for a topical note, with Jane Anderson's Tough Choices for a New Century:
A Seminar on Responsible Living, directed by Terri Ferguson. Ray Gestaut and Kelly Thomas
play a married couple who teach a seminar, stressing preparedness for natural disasters, no
matter where you live.
It becomes more humorous as the couple's relationship reveals its fault lines. But the show
quickly declines when a third instructor (Aleisha Force) extols the ultimate weapon for self
defense, the handgun. Even in Texas, that section isn't nearly as uncomfortably
funny-'cause-it's-true as the first one. GRADE: B-
Bootstraps Comedy Theater does the festival's only title by a local writer, Matt Lyle's Sunny &
Eddie Sitting in a Tree, a sweet love story for post -Seinfeld and -Friends neurotics. Jessica D.
Turner directs, and Lyle and Jennifer Youle are the title characters, who meet in a therapist's
waiting room. When it's not going out of its way to be offensive, it's clever. GRADE: B
The Keller-bound Theater Fusion took on one of two John Patrick Shanley plays, 1985's The
Dreamer Examines His Pillow. Directed by Robert Neblett, it's beautifully acted by Elizabeth Van
Winkle, who discovers disturbing similarities between her slacker, artist-wannabe sometimes
beau Tommy (Todd Haberkorn) and her father (T.A. Taylor), a real artist -- namely, that both guys
don't treat women right. GRADE: A-
WingSpan Theatre Company ran away with the best show and production of this bunch with
Tennessee Williams' one-act Something Unspoken, a companion play to his better known
Suddenly Last Summer. Gail Cronauer directs a slam-dunk cast. Midge Verhein is a Southern
society woman who insists on having a startling conversation about something more than
friendship with her secretary Grace (Moira Wilson). Williams' lyricism is vibrant as ever, and
he maintains his stunning ability to say volumes about unseemly topics without directly
addressing them. GRADE; A+
THE FESTIVAL OF INDEPENDENT THEATRES
Through Aug. 5; two-show performance blocks are at 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays; 2, 5 and 8
p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 5 p.m. Sundays
Bath House Cultural Center, 521 E. Lawther Drive, Dallas
$12-$16 per performance block, $49 for FIT pass
214-528-5576
