Good times roll again at Fun House Theatre in Plano, starting this Tuesday May 7. Daffodil Girls will work its nefarious charms and prick up the neck hairs on an unsuspecting audience. Find it a down and dirty, accurately voiced parody of David Mamet’s 1984 Glengarry Glen Ross as the female members of Jeff Swearingen’s bold thespian troupe slug their way to the top of a cookie sales empire, mincing no words, sparing no insults and back-stabbing with the best bankers whoever bribed and bullied a US congressman in smoke-filled backroom deals.
I thought I knew what to expect last week when I sat through the final table read and the first stumble through on stage, but I wasn’t prepared for its reality. I felt impaled against my chair back by the unbridled lust for power unleashed by the young actors as they embraced Mamet’s cold-blooded style, the predatory, rapid-fire tone and aggressive, unforgiving fury that lashes together most of his plays and embodies the corporate Armageddon of Glengarry Glen Ross. And yes, Swearingen tones down the “colorful language” while maintaining its roguish intent.
Our controlling, celebrity worshipful culture instructs little girls to be “nice” and “pleasing” in every way. Don’t show “too much brain” or “act” too assertively. You “won’t get a man that way”. All that matters? How you look, your sex appeal. An assertive woman who knows what she wants and goes for it is a “castrating bitch”, while a similar display in a man “shows initiative”.
HA. Eat ‘poop’ and die. Come out and meet the GIRLS…..
Fun House Theatre gifts its young actors with creative, safe opportunities to explore aspects of humanity that many adult theatre companies don’t fully address. Do I, or Fun House’s Jeff Swearingen and Bren Rapp, advocate that these cast members grow up to become tyrannical, unethical “captains of industry”? Not hardly. But it does the feminist soul a world of good to hear young female voices explore the world of power without a batted eyelash or whorishly slung hip among them. The sky doesn’t fall. The ground doesn’t gape sinkholes and swallow them up. Tomorrow’s leaders will come from both genders, I promise. I hope these young actors remember what it feels like to speak on stage as Daffodil Girls and learn that they don’t need to wait until age 40 or 60 as women to find that nobody will ever give you power. You have to take it and own it.
1st rehearsal on the set. Set Designer & Painter Joseph Cummings upstage. Shyama Nithiananda on book.
Daffodil Girls, Jeff Swearingen’s bone-chilling parody of Glengarry Glen Ross, runs this week only at Plano Children’s Theatre on Custer Road in Plano.
May 7 through 12
Go to www.funhousetheatreandfilm.com for tickets, info.
May 7th is Industry night.
Get up off your lazy, friggin’ butt and go see it.
A few facts about Glengarry Glen Ross:
- 1983 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play
- 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
- 1984 New York Drama Critics’ Circle for Best American Play
- 2005 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Revival of a Play
- 2005 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play
- Nominations
- 1984 Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play
- 1984 Tony Award for Best Play
criticalrant.com Alexandra Bonifield 