RICH LOPEZ | Staff writer
Rich@DallasVoice.com
Currently onstage at Kitchen Dog Theater is the regional premiere of Steve Yockey’s Venus. The story centers on two women who recap a date gone horribly wrong — and that’s underselling it.
These women have a meet-cute and go out on a date that is followed by love bombs and possible manslaughter. No U-hauls were involved on this lesbian first date. Instead, Yockey’s character exploration was an absurdist dramedy of sapphic proportions.
Venus runs through June 28.
The fact that the play opened during Pride Month was a nice bow on top for Yockey.
“I think it was a happy accident but I’m not mad about it,” he said. “Although I think people celebrating Pride would maybe want it to have a happier end.”
The catalyst for the show came from a philosophical treatise that Yockey came upon that questioned whether real love can exist in this modern world. In The Agony of Eros, Byung-Chul Han posits that today’s hyper-connectivity and self-importance are killing the notion of love and romance.
“So it becomes everyone imitating what they read in books or see in the movies in terms of love, like we’re taught to act the part,” Yockey said. “ Like we can’t really do the real thing anymore, but I don’t agree with that.
“I thought about the two things that are most applicable [and] are always in the background: social media and fear. Everyone needs to be right all the time, because if you’re right, then you don’t have to be afraid.”
He continued, “If you are afraid all the time, how can you really connect with another person? And so that’s where it’s started for me, the exploration of that.”
The play is directed by Christie Vela and stars Tina Parker as Beth and Sally Nystuen Vahle as Nicole. Although this marks the first pairing on stage for Parker and Vahle, all three women have deep ties to the theater. Parker is KDT’s co-artistic director and company manager; Vahle is a founding member of the company, and Vela is a member of its artistic company.
And all three kill it.
Nystuen played Nicole with a grounded sensibility that hides her own neuroses. It is a structured performance filled with nuance.
Beth is more assertive and chases Nicole. Parker brought her to life with a punchy vibe and delivery.
Under Vela’s direction,the show moved at a lovely pace that allowed each character to breathe into their existence so that the audience could connect. Mostly taking place smack dab in the center on a platform, the actors and director conveyed Yockey’s words with a superb flair. And for a show that has a lot of visual symbolism through dialogue, the actors all painted Yockey’s colorful pictures so vibrantly.
Queer audiences may also recognize themselves in either – or both – characters. We’ve all been a little too excited about a date — only, maybe not so much to cause bodily injury or leave someone in a shallow grave.
As a gay male writer, why did Yockey choose to deliver a story centered on romance between two queer women?
“It felt like that’s what it needed to be. It can’t be a man and a woman because he is automatically more threatening, even if he’s the nicest guy in the world. I suppose it could have been two gay men, but I feel like that would be more aggressive out of the gate than the play wants to be.
“And so there was something about making it to women and making them as specific as possible,” he said.
Additionally, how refreshing it was to see women of a certain vintage in the throes of romance as well as red flag behavior!
This is the second show this year that highlights relationships between two lesbian women from vastly different perspectives. First, was Amphibian Stage and Second Thought’s historic Bull in a China Shop about Mary Woolley and Jeannette Marks, two established intellectuals navigating their relationship through careers in a time when women were fighting for voting rights.
Here, in Venus, Nicole and Beth fight over the color of flowers and the contents of a junk drawer. Seeing these actors in these roles felt like a revelation. Only, the age of the characters in Yockey’s play is inconsequential.
“The age isn’t specified so far,” Yockey said. “So this is a rolling world premiere, and I just saw the production in Atlanta with actresses who were slightly younger than the actresses in Texas, and it’s a very different vibe.”
Which may just be the entire point of Yockey’s play.
He goes on to say, “What I love so much about having Tina and Sally do it is that it’s so unexpected. Like, you, you would just think, they both carry this life experience to the stage with them, but also, they are kind of old enough to know better.”
“Regardless of age, love can still fuck you up,” he said.
For tickets, visit KitchenDogTheater.org.