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Buckle Up for Leonard’s Car

By Rick A. Elina

The Bishop Arts Theater Center is a monument to death and resurrection. What was once a 10,000 square foot dilapidated office building is now a state of the art 170 seat theatre in the heart of the historic Bishop Arts District. Leonard’s Car by Dallas playwright Isabella Russell-Ides is the perfect production to debut in this comfortable new space. A 2006 Rabin Award winning play, Leonard’s Car is also a monument to death and resurrection.

Josey Jeauxcarre (Cindee Mayfield) and her two daughters, Ruby Tuesday (Ashley Wilkerson) and Skylark (Octavia Thomas) are gathered in Josey’s studio to engage in a round of that old family pastime known as the blame game. Josey is an erstwhile writer who deals with chronic writers block by painting. She paints with such vigor and passion that you actually feel drawn into the very pigment of the canvas. Skylark is first to point the accusatory finger at her mom, claiming Josey exploited her personal life for literary gain. Ruby Tuesday tries repeatedly to interject into the conversation, only to be discounted and dismissed by her older sister. Ms. Thomas portrays her character with a larger than life chutzpah that plays well against the diminutive yet intense Ms. Wilkerson. But it’s the chaos of Josey’s life that provides the tectonic movement at the play’s epicenter.  Since the death of her lover, Leonard, Josey’s life has existed only in a tailspin while hurtling towards a crash waiting to happen. Pain consumes her with only intermittent relief from alcohol and thoughts of suicide. Ms. Mayfield gives us a character that is so acute in her delirium that at any moment you might expect the show to be interrupted for an emergency intervention. All three women are superb!

Set Designer Christopher Jenkins gives us a world colored brightly between the lines, in stark contrast to the world outside. Subtle nuances remind us of the free spirit trapped within Josey’s tortured soul. Even Leonard’s car, an old rusted out 1955 Thunderbird receives a new birth on Josey’s canvas.

This play possesses moments of brilliant irony. Small becomes large; old become new. Through insanity we become sane. After all, Josey reminds us “psychotherapy is the death of art.” And it is art that heals.

Leonard’s Car runs through October 25, 2008 at the Bishop Arts Theater Center. Visit TeCoTheater.org or call 214.948.0716 for more details.

Rick A. Elina is a playwright based in Plano, Texas and is the Theatre Critic for The North Dallas Gazette.

 

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