SWEET TEXAS RECKONING: Bringing Theater Down Home to Its Roots
This week I saw a staged reading of Sweet Texas Reckoning, a warm, funny and compassionate tragicomedy by Traci Godfrey, that underscored something true about the arts in general and theater in particular: when it’s done well, you know it and you like it.
A staged reading doesn’t have a set and the actors don’t touch or even look at each other necessarily. Yet the two full houses that witnessed Monday’s performances of Sweet Texas Reckoning did not appear to register this distinction, or to mind at all the simplicity of the production. The audiences listened and laughed, and in the end, were moved and mesmerized by the power, eloquence and humanity they witnessed on the bare stage of the cozy theater.
It didn’t matter whether you watched the figures onstage or listened to their voices with your eyes closed—what you saw with your mind’s eye and heard were the authentic and provocative language of a deeply felt play and the passionate rendition of a talented cast committed to bring that play to life.
Ms. Godfrey, the playwright, deserves abundant credit for knowing her characters so well and for conveying them honestly in all of their complexity. She also deftly put them in a situation that is familiar, yet sufficiently different to keep audiences on edge. Meanwhile, Chris Roe the director is to be commended for giving Sweet Texas Reckoning its particular dynamics and rhythm. He paced the action briskly and brashly in comic passages, then slowed and deepened it in its moments of revelation and pathos.
The acting ensemble of Sweet Texas Reckoning—Marilyn Oran, Helen Coxe, Tia Dionne Hodge and Jonathan Stewart—also merit a standing ovation for their robust performances and perceptive interpretations of characters at odds in a fraught homecoming scenario with high emotional stakes. These talented actors played their roles with strength and authenticity, at times fierce, at other times tender. In the end, they embodied these conflicted characters with insight and empathy that communicated in a palpable way to the audiences. This foursome with only scripts in hand produced dramatic magic. Without props, sets or physical interaction, they connected with one another—and with their audiences—to bring the small, smoldering world of Sealy, Texas to downtown New York. I’m glad I made the trip. And I’ll be back when this fine play gets the full production it deserves.