Theater Review: Hallucinogenic Toreador a surreal oddity, just as it should be

10:27 AM CST on Friday, December 5, 2008

By LAWASON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News
ltaitte@dallasnews.com

Arty plays where the actors shout and dance about travel well. Hallucinogenic Toreador by Limehouse Theater in Athens, Ohio, proved one of the top shows at Prague's fringe festival this summer, and now it looks swell at the long-awaited Green Zone.

Former Dallas director Vanessa Mercado Taylor went off to graduate school at Ohio University and co-founded Limehouse. A year ago, she asked Dallas playwright John M. Flores to consider doing a play about surrealist painter Salvador Dali. He quickly dashed off a draft, and the two have been collaborating via e-mail since.

Project X: Theatre imported the Limehouse production, with one of the three roles re-cast, for a two-week run that opened on Thursday. This marks the first time Project X has invited the public into the Green Zone, its long-planned performance space in the Design District near the Trinity River. From the outside, the building looks like a garage in the Emerald City. Inside, it is niftily equipped and comfortable.

Mr. Flores' script takes its inspiration from a famous painting that Dali divided into 12 areas. When looked at in a certain way, it gels into the image of a toreador. The playwright accordingly wrote a number of small vignettes based on aspects of the painter's life and writings. They coalesce into something greater than themselves – if you look at them in the right way.

Hallucinogenic Toreador begins alarmingly with the three performers – Austin Tindle, Elenna Mosoff and Katie Skelton – bursting onto the stage yelling the same phrase over and over. Over the course of the short play, they strike poses, take off most of their clothing, climb scaffolding and re-enact a TV game show. We learn of Dali's obsessions and his idealization of his wife and muse, Gala.

It's all pretty weird. But then Salvador Dali was self-consciously weird. Surrealism rules.

Through Dec. 13 at the Green Zone, 161 Riveredge. Runs 45 mins. $10. 817-437-7407, www.projectxtheatre .com.