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the cry pitch carrolls
the cry pitch carrolls rubber stamp image

Last night I saw a strange "nostalgic nuclear winter christmas opera" The Cry Pitch Carrolls, produced by Salvage Vanguard. I agreed to see it with a friend Diana partly because I was mixed up and thought it was a Rude Mechanicals production... Rude Mechanicals and Salvage Vanguard are somewhat similar Austin theater groups who both put on rather surreal unconventional interestingly experimental productions, with the main difference being that I usually like Rude Mechanicals plays and usually am disappointed by Salvage Vanguard plays (e.g. I really hated Dirigible a few years ago). Each play program came in an individual manila envelope with rubber stamped information on it; I liked getting a hand printed artifact.

Anyway, as I had worried, The Cry Pitch Carrolls was rather annoying and disappointing at times. First, the story was an inexplicable surreal dreamlike jumble involving madonna and baby jesus in a landscape of permanently snowing winter and 3 crotchety old women: lack of coherent plot is not a bad thing per se, but it means that if there's no clear story, then something else has to pull you in, e.g. characters or music. But none of the characters were very sympathetic or likable. The madonna was hard to get to know because she didn't do much: she knelt the entire play and had little dialog. The baby Jesus (played by an adult with shaved head, reminding me vaguely of Billy Corgan wearing a diaper) was seemingly psychotic, twitching and launching into screaming outbursts and frustratingly unpleasant sing-song in the first part of the play. The 3 old women were all kind of senile with high-pitched screechy voices. The music on the other hand was the saving grace for me: it was performed live by Golden Arm Trio, whose music has graced many a theater event I've enjoyed. I was almost tempted to buy the CD of the music, but I figured it probably included the singing and not just the instrumental music.

Luckily the singing became more enjoyable, shifting away from ranty screams and piercing screeches into a more impressive operatic range in the later part of the piece. The set design, lighting, etc. were good. Lots of falling snow which looked good, except for the usual problem of it landing on people's skin but never melting. One subplot involved a lost poodle, and at the very end, I was surprised when a little white poodle actually came onto stage and sauntered to its owner and hopped into her lap affectionately, which was actually kind of cool and impressive, because depending on an animal to do the right thing in a live play always seems risky. That dog is a natural actor!

Despite my frustration during the watching of this somewhat slow, annoying and occasionally soporific play, I find myself reminiscing over bits of it now, so perhaps it is sticking with me like a dream, which perhaps was the intent.