Highly Recommended ***** Powerful! Seriously funny and audacious! Magnificently acted and directed!
Artemisia: A Chicago Theatre brings the charming, witty, and hard-hitting play “Sweet Texas Reckoning” to Stage 3A of the Den Theatre. Adroitly directed by Julie Proudfoot and based on the comedy by Traci Godfrey, the performance is spectacular in the way it draws in the audience and doesn’t let go until the very end.
“Sweet Texas Reckoning” captures the world in a drop of pond water—or perhaps in a drop of alcohol. From the first swig that Ellie (Molly Lyons) takes, we are introduced to a remarkable story of family secrets and dashed expectations: a tale of a family’s broken heart and its need for healing. 
How does an individual introduce a spouse of the same gender to a family with traditional social values?
Kate Wolcott (Scottie Caldwell) identifies as lesbian and comes home from New York City to Sealy, Texas, with her new wife Samantha (Anita Kavuu Ng’ang’a) in tow. Rather, the trip was Sam’s idea to introduce them as a couple to Kate’s mother, Ellie. Sam, who happens to be a black woman, is suddenly thrust into the bosom of a fundamentalist Christian white Texan family. This creates an uncomfortable situation where long-standing rifts begin to surface among family members—and are brought to the fore when Kate’s former boyfriend A.J., a/k/a Alan John (John Wehrman) makes it clear that he is still sweet on Kate and wants to propose marriage to her.
The first act is flawless. It is novel, creative, and terrific! Godfrey’s writing is superb with its keen sense of timing and foreshadowing. The rapid-fire parlance is simultaneously real, comedic, and very personal. The brilliant stage direction drives the missteps, misunderstandings, and misgivings among the characters as they intersect and overlap in dyads, triads, and quadriads. How enjoyable it is to watch the family dynamics! Nobody wants the dance to end!
Brutal honesty is the vehicle for the clash of cultures. The juxtaposition of family members allows them to confront deeply-held prejudices and beliefs on race, religion, gender, politics, sexual orientation, family structure, and lifestyle. This eventually leads each person to examine or reaffirm their own sense of identity (e.g., gay/straight; black/white; Northerner/ Southerner; Bible-believer/non-religious, etc.). It’s serious but funny all at the same time!
The second act is more predictable as the play changes course and the characters reveal themselves to each other and the audience. Unfortunately, the alluring dance from the first act fades into the contemporary normalcy of group therapy, where each person wants to be understood. Is it so that they can continue as a family? Of course, to understand one’s own and others’ personal histories can be the first step in bridging relationships and healing the heart, but the cerebral nature of the second act creates too much of a radical break from both the comedy and the drama. How I missed the humor and pacing from before! 
Explaining the absence of Baxter, Kate’s brother, is a good touch. But in some spots the discussion of family members not on stage seems too heavy-handed. Too much information!
Instead, what would have helped is throwing or intentionally dropping one or more of Ellie’s precious Fiestaware plates. This would have heightened the tension between the characters, only to allow some of the strains among them to resolve themselves through subsequent discussions. The plates would thus symbolize important values that must be broken in order to begin anew.
What makes “Sweet Texas Reckoning” especially beguiling is that brings to the fore so very many questions surrounding self, identity, and authenticity. When must we be bound by social norms? When do we strike out independently? When do we make compromises? What of the regrets for not choosing a different path in life or not being true to oneself?
As the performance moves forward, the characters develop a deeper sense of what it means to give and receive love and come to realize that many different types of love exist: that of a spouse, brother, sister, mother, daughter, good friend, and the like. Each can exist within the same person. This makes love varied, multifaceted, and, above all, complicated.
It is in this vein that the character arc of A.J. is the most intriguing. The only male character in the performance, he loves his intended so much that he’s willing to let her go—and be free to love somebody else, even if that somebody is a woman. It is A.J. who grows the most during the course of the play: He has always loved Kate and has wanted her for his own. But by the second act, he is not bitter or angry about her rejecting him but, rather, joyous in the knowledge that she will be loved in the way that she so desires and deserves.
“Sweet Texas Reckoning” is comedy and drama at its best. It packs a punch and minces no words. Accolades to all!
Perfect for Pride Month!
The Midwest Premiere of “Sweet Texas Reckoning” is playing at the Den Theatre, located at 1331 N. Milwaukee Avenue, ( parking is tight, but available) 
Performances schedule is as follows:
| Wednesdays: | 7:30pm |
| Thursdays: | 7:30pm |
| Fridays: | 7:30pm |
| Saturdays: | 7:30pm |
| Sundays: | 3:00pm |
Price: $25
Show Type: Comedy
Box Office: 773-697-3830
To see what others are saying, visit http://www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “Sweet Texas Reckoning”.
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