The man in the moon
KAREN SHADE, 07/19/2005
Alli Tunnell and Whitson Hanna star in "References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot." STPEHEN PINGRY / Tulsa World
The character casts a feverish glow upon this telling of 'References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot'
Strange things have been known to happen in the desert, and the world created at Nightingale Theater for its most recent foray into atypical Tulsa theater is no exception.
The world for "References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot" is a feverish stop on the hot plate that is the California desert.
During the night, Gabriela catches the Moon's attention with poetic language. Perched upon a refrigerator with his violin, he (yes, it is a he) casts his light upon her by tearing open the refrigerator door.
"I haven't had a lover's eyes to look into for months," she exclaims before she saunters back to her bed to dream.
Maybe she dreams of a coyote and cat as they tease one another in a dangerous courtship that will consume at least one of them. Maybe even that is a mirror of what is to come for Gabriela, her husband Benito and their strained marriage.
Director Devin Meadows said in a recent interview that Jose Rivera's take on a contemporary relationship is not thematically complicated.
Instead, its complexity rests in perception and assigning a different kind of reality (one involving magic) to the norm.
This world is more like a dream, and Gabriela, played by Alli Tunnell, is distraught. She hasn't seen her husband for many months, and loneliness and the heat prey upon her. She does things that make her not entirely likable, but you do empathize with her.
Benito, played by Whitson Hanna, returns home from another mission. He has been in a military conflict and has been gone a long time. They've both changed over the course of their marriage.
The last time we saw Hanna, he needed permission to buy an ice cream as a childlike man living with his mother in "Lester's Breakdown Suite" at Heller Theatre. Hanna makes a U-turn from his previous role and makes a contemptible yet thoroughly believable Benito.
Tunnel, who last appeared opposite Hanna as Lester's bitter, estranged sister, makes her own transition. Tunnel missed her mark in the Heller show, but finds it in "References." She went through more layers of her onstage persona this time, and it showed.
Tunnell and Hanna also received good support from Annie Ellicott as a lusting teenage boy, George Romero as a saucy kitty and John Cruncleton, a coyote with a hefty appetite for more than just food.
Is Gabriela hallucinating? What kind of reality does Benito really live in? They may or may not ever come together again, but maybe any kind of resolution isn't necessarily the goal in "References."
"References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot" continues at the Nightingale Theater, 1416 E. Fourth St., this weekend. The show runs at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday.
Admission is $8. For more, call 583-8487 [As of February 2007, 633-8666] or go to www.nightingaletheater.com.