Weekend Event Planner

These are the 8 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

We've come to that point in December when most of the big holiday events have already started, so there are relatively few new things going on. But this weekend is an exception. It holds three huge happenings: A classic holiday movie come to life on stage, the final tour visit of a music legend, and another music legend celebrating the holidays in his unique style.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. Want more options? Lucky for you, we have a much longer list of the city's best events.

Thursday, December 13

AT&T Performing Arts Center presents Broadway Series: A Christmas Story, The Musical
From the songwriting team behind the Tony Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen and the Academy Award-winning film La La Land, A Christmas Story, The Musical, brings the classic 1983 movie to hilarious life on stage. It features all the classic scenes, including the infamous leg lamp, outrageous pink bunny pajamas, a maniacal department-store Santa, and a triple-dog-dare to lick a freezing flagpole. The production will run at Winspear Opera House through Sunday.

Mainstage Irving Las Colinas presents Have Yourself A Broadway Little Christmas
Have Yourself A Broadway Little Christmas brings together favorite holiday songs made famous through Broadway shows and movie musicals. Cabaret luminary Amy Stevenson and Sherry Etzel will sing hits from Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, Mame, How the Grinch Stole Christmas The Musical, Songs for A New World, Holiday Inn, Broadway’s Elf, and more. There will be two more performances through Friday at Irving Arts Center.

Friday, December 14

Elton John in concert
After more than half a century on the road and an unparalleled career that has redefined the cultural landscape, Elton John comes to Dallas as part of of his final tour called "Farewell Yellow Brick Road." The new stage production will take John's fans on a musical and highly visual journey spanning a 50-year career of hits like no one has ever seen before. He'll play at American Airlines Center on both Friday and Saturday.

Brian Wilson presents The Christmas Album Live
Brian Wilson and his crack band of musicians and vocalists, along with longtime bandmates Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin, will be performing The Beach Boys' Christmas Album in its entirety, along with cuts from his solo Christmas album, What I Really Want for Christmas. The concert will take place at Majestic Theatre.

George Lopez: The Wall World Tour
Few comedians have enjoyed the type of success that George Lopez has over the past 20 years or so. He has had not one, but three eponymous sitcoms — George Lopez, Saint George, and Lopez. He was also the host of the short-lived talk show, Lopez Tonight. Obviously, the man knows funny, which he'll show at this special event at The Theatre at Grand Prairie.

Bishop Arts Theatre Center presents Black Nativity
This holiday Gospel celebration returns for its 15th Anniversary. Spoken word, song, music, dance, and theater combine to create this one-of-a-kind Christmas pageant that has become a Bishop Arts Theatre Center holiday tradition. Hughes’ retelling of the Nativity Story encourages audiences to find joy and asks us all to look inward and find the wonder in life itself. The production will run through December 23.

Saturday, December 15

Tuzer Ballet presents The Nutcracker
Tuzer Ballet presents its 34th annual production of the holiday ballet, Peter Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker. Audiences will be transported to the wondrous world of swirling snowflakes, magical gifts, and the land of the Sugar Plum Fairy at this production, which features two soloists from the Boston Ballet. There will be three performances through Sunday at Eisemann Center for the Performing Arts in Richardson.

The Polyphonic Spree Christmas Show
At The Polyphonic Spree's annual Christmas Show, guests are encouraged to bring a new toy for Toys for Tots and a canned food item for the North Texas Food Bank. The all-ages show at Majestic Theatre, which features performances by The Polyphonic Spree and others, also gives ticketholders a chance to win some great gifts from the sponsors and some white elephant treasures from members of the band. Guests are encouraged to dress up in their favorite holiday garb.

The Polyphonic Spree Christmas Show will take place at Majestic Theatre on December 15.

Photo courtesy of The Polyphonic Spree

The Polyphonic Spree Christmas Show will take place at Majestic Theatre on December 15.

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Movie Review

Rose Byrne plays one stressed-out mom in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

Photo courtesy of A24

Conan O'Brien and Rose Byrne in If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

Movie history is littered with depictions of stressed-out mothers who have breakdowns due to the pressure put on them by their children, spouses, or society in general. Recent examples include Hereditary, Tully, and Nightbitch, with each of them finding different ways to depict their main character’s struggles. Yet another put-upon mother goes through the wringer in the oddly-named If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.

When we meet Linda (Rose Byrne), she’s already in the middle of a huge ball of stress. Her daughter (Delaney Quinn) suffers from an unnamed illness that requires around-the-clock care and frequent doctor visitors. Her husband, Charles (Christian Slater), is a boat captain whose job keeps him away from home for long periods of time. And her job as a therapist requires her to hear other people’s problems, necessitating her seeing a fellow therapist (Conan O’Brien) on a daily basis.

Nearly everyone else she encounters in the movie adds to her anxiety, including Caroline (Danielle Macdonald), a new mother who’s constantly worried about her baby; Dr. Spring (Mary Bronstein), who constantly harps on Linda to get her daughter to eat; an officious parking attendant at the hospital; and a sneering desk clerk at the motel she and her daughter are forced to stay at after a plumbing disaster at home. Consequently, she dismisses James (A$AP Rocky), another motel worker, the one person who treats her with a modicum of kindness.

Written and directed by Bronstein, the film is a harrowing experience that somehow also manages to be darkly funny at times. Linda is dealing with way too much for one person to adequately handle, something that is compounded by the fact that nobody really listens to her, not even the therapist she’s paying to do so. Scenes bounce back and forth between Linda demonstrating righteous anger at what the world is throwing at her and crushing guilt over supposedly not doing enough for her child.

Bronstein depicts Linda’s journey in a number of interesting ways, some straightforward and others not so much. Bronstein makes liberal use of close-ups on Linda’s face, heightening the feeling that the world is closing in on her. The plumbing problem at her home results in a huge hole in the ceiling, which becomes the source of some unexplained phenomena, a choice that might have been unnecessary.

What’s most striking about the film is how hardly anyone is on Linda’s side. Since the film joins the story as it’s already in progress, the audience is left to guess as to how Linda has behaved in the past to garner such negative interactions from people who should be helping her. While she’s not a perfect person, she also doesn’t appear to be such a jerk that she should be treated with disdain everywhere she goes.

Byrne, who’s gravitated toward lighter roles in recent years, is an absolute marvel in this part. The more stress Linda feels, the more she becomes disheveled, and Byrne makes you feel every ounce of the character’s pain. O’Brien, who’s rarely had to play anyone but “Conan O’Brien” before, is surprisingly good, tamping down his comic sensibility to complement Byrne well. A$AP Rocky also makes a nice impression, elevating a character that’s a little underwritten.

The role of a mom is never an easy one, and that’s in the best of circumstances. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You - a title that is never explained yet still somehow fits - earns its stripes by demonstrating how the often thankless job of motherhood can become even more distressing when the mom in question is given little to no support.

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If I Had Legs I'd Kick You is now playing in select theaters.

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