Last year, when Theatre Three debuted Solstice, it was a buffet of seasonal offerings, including a short play about Stuart and Paulette, an aging Dallas couple sneaking around to find love with each other despite the resistance of their grown kids.
Written by Dallas playwright Jonathan Norton, it was last year's highlight. Now, happily, an expanded new riff on their story, Solstice, a New Holiday Adventure, is the whole show. It features the same terrific performers, M. Denise Lee and Paul T. Taylor. It's funny, irreverent and touching, with delicious local details as Paulette and Stuart venture from Pleasant Grove to NorthPark Center.
Norton riffs affectionately on Christmas Carol with a mystical comic figure, Misery (Marti Etheridge) using magic to help Stuart revisit his past so that he can free himself from it. Stuart is no miser like Scrooge, but he is mired in the thought that he may be betraying his late wife if he moves toward a future with Paulette.
Paulette has her own journey to navigate, but hers cuts the poignancy of Stuart's tale with a dream sequence about a fantasy boyfriend (Cherish Robinson as flashy recording and songwriting star Johnnie Taylor — a real, late Dallas recording artist) that's outrageously funny.
Directed with irrepressible exuberance by Vickie Washington, the show offers a core of feeling, swirled in an intoxicating eggnog of letting go and having fun. And while this Solstice focuses on one play rather than separate stories, Norton has incorporated other voices within this story, with Janielle Kastner getting credit for contributions and Robinson creating tuneful songs.
Kastner, a playwright, performance deviser and actress who is collaborating on a play about journalism based on The Dallas Morning News, provided some of the wackier parts of the piece that I don't want to give away except to say machetes are involved.
It's a collaboration that speaks well of Norton, especially as he enters a new rung in Dallas theater. His new play, Penny Candy, set in Pleasant Grove, will premiere June 5 at Dallas Theater Center, and he has been named the playwright in residence at Dallas Theater Center as of Jan. 1, replacing Will Power, whose Fetch Clay, Make Man continues at the Wyly Theatre through Jan. 13.
He'll be called upon to be step up as a mentor and leader for Dallas artists in his new position. This good-hearted, upbeat show with deep Dallas roots and the seamless way he incorporates the contributions of others in this piece suggests he's got what it takes.
Details
Continues through Dec. 30 at Theatre Three, 2800 Routh St., Dallas. $10-$50. theatre3dallas.com. Performance reviewed was Monday, Dec. 10. Running time: 2 hours, 7 mins.
