Theater Review

Dallas Theater Center’s Bella upends any expectations you have going in

There is a lot to unpack in Bella: An American Tall Tale, the latest world premiere musical from Dallas Theater Center. While it explores the experience of being African-American in the late 1870s, it does so through the use of fantastical storytelling, odd and sometimes corny subplots, and a wide variety of music that will likely upend any expectations you might have had going in.

Playing through October 22 at Wyly Theatre, Bella follows, well, Bella (Ashley D. Kelley) as she takes a train from Tupelo, Mississippi, to New Mexico to surprise Aloysius (Clifton Oliver), her boyfriend who is a member of the Buffalo Soldiers. Or, at least, that’s the idea, as her wild imagination sidetracks her, concocting conversations with her mother (Kenita R. Miller), Aunt Dinah (Liz Mikel), and multiple other characters along the way.

You know you’re in for an unusual time at the theater when the first song out of the gate is one titled “Big Booty Tupelo Gal,” with lines like “That ain’t my bustle/that’s my derriere.” And that’s hardly a one-off song; the state of Bella’s behind is admired, pondered, and debated throughout the production, both for comic effect and not.

Many of the songs in the musical are extremely funny, including one in which Bella imagines a charismatic and handsome Mexican cowboy, Diego (Yurel Echezarreta); an inexplicable one involving a Chinese man named Tommy Haw (Paolo Montalban); and one with the hilarious title of “One Ass to Another.”

But while comedy is used often and to great effect, playwright and songwriter Kirsten Childs has much more on her mind than making you laugh. Bella is traveling cross-country under an assumed name, as she’s wanted for an unknown crime back in Tupelo. As layers are unveiled about her background, it’s intimated that her “crime” is no crime at all, but rather a function of being black in the post-Civil War south.

Multiple songs touch on the racial conflicts or experience of the time. “Kansas-bound” in the first act speaks to a supposed safe haven for African-Americans, while “White People Tonight” in the second act finds Bella fighting back against yet another oppressor in a funny yet deadly serious way.

Through it all, Kelley’s sunny disposition and irrepressible charm carries the day. Despite the musical having 12 different characters, Kelley is on stage for almost every second of the production, which makes her performance that much more outstanding. The strength of her voice and her sheer endurance make her and her role one to remember.

In addition to Mikel, Miller, and Echezarreta, other standouts include M. Denise Lee as Bella’s grandmother and Donald Webber Jr. as the train’s porter, who lends a hand to Bella on multiple occasions.

It’s next to impossible to put Bella: An American Tall Tale into any kind of box. It has great songs and is laugh-out-loud funny at times, but it also deals with racial issues in ways that make it much more than just a period piece. Simply put, it’s yet another stellar production from Dallas Theater Center.

Ashley D. Kelley and the cast of Dallas Theater Center's Bella: An American Tall Tale.

Dallas Theater Center presents Bella: An American Tall Tale

Photo by Karen Almond

Ashley D. Kelley and the cast of Dallas Theater Center's Bella: An American Tall Tale.

Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

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