Weekend Event Planner

These are the 9 best things to do in Dallas this weekend

While many events in and around Dallas have either been postponed or canceled during the coronavirus pandemic, there are a few that have popped up to offer the masses some entertainment while still adhering to the necessary social distancing measures.

Below are the best ways to spend your free time this weekend. While they're not all outside of the house, they all promise to provide a nice distraction from the everyday life.

Thursday, October 15

Shakespeare Dallas presents Shakespeare and the Suffragists
Shakespeare and the Suffragists is a new virtual performance project honoring the centennial passage of the 19th Amendment, which granted many women the right to vote. The unique performance will examine Shakespeare’s more feminist texts and how they have been interpreted over time. Through the lens of four historical female figures, the production will shed new light on how Shakespeare’s works might have shaped the Suffragist movement and the ways in which his characters and monologues would have resonated in the 1920s. The production will be available for streaming through November 30.

Symphony Arlington presents Season Opening Concert
Symphony Arlington’s 2020-2021 Season will open with this concert at Arlington Music Hall featuring pianist Alex McDonald. The program includes Rossini’s Overture to The Italian Girl in Algiers, as well as two Beethoven works: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major and Symphony No. 4 in Bb Major. The concert, like all of Symphony Arlington's concerts this season, will offer both an in-person and live streaming option.

Cara Mia Theatre Co. presents My Red Hand, My Black Hand
Cara Mia Theatre Co. will present the regional premiere of Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Dael Orlandersmith’s My Red Hand, My Black Hand, which marks the return of the Café/Negro Series, a co-production with Soul Rep Theatre. The play unfolds as a teenager describes the past, present, and future of her parents' cultures. She talks about the "Red" Tlingit and Lakota parentage of her father, who leaves the reservation to play the blues in Boston, and the "Black" rural Virginia background of her mother, who goes to Boston seeking the big-city life. Her parents meet at a dance and fall in love, but not without the complications of prejudice from their families. The virtual production will be livestreamed on various dates through November 8.

Friday, October 16

The Mockingbird Station Fair
Mockingbird Station will keep the State Fair of Texas' spirit alive on what would have been the fair's final weekend with The Mockingbird Station Fair. The event, taking place through Sunday, will include Instagrammable moments like the iconic Midway sign, and a magical unicorn horse petting zoo. Along with carnival games like LED cornhole, double shot basketball, and more, Corn Dog With No Name will be on hand to serve fair-themed foods, beers, and other alcoholic beverages.

Subtronics in concert
Electronic dance music, or EDM, doesn't often get a prime showcase like this, but in the topsy-turvy COVID world, things are changing. DJ Subtronics has been massively prolific in the past five years, releasing 12 EPs and albums in that time. He'll be joined at this drive-in outdoor concert in the parking lot next to Dos Equis Pavilion by HE$H, Al Ross, Level Up, and Ace Aura.

Carbaret drive-in screenings
Carbaret will present two shows instead of one this week, traveling to Four Corners Brewing Co. on Friday to host a concert by Joshua Ray Walker and Matt Hillyer of Eleven Hundred Springs, followed by a screening of the critically acclaimed film This World Won't Break. On Saturday, they'll be back at Brizo in Richardson to team up with Texas Frightmare Weekend for a special screening of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

The Firehouse Theatre presents Back to the '80s
The Firehouse Theatre will present the majorly rad musical revue Back to the '80s. The outdoor production at The Sound at Cypress Waters tells the story of the senior class of William Ocean High School as remembered through the eyes of a now thirtysomething former student. The show, playing Friday-Sunday through October 25, includes a Star Wars dream sequence, the obligatory '80s party scene, high-energy dance routines, and some of the most popular songs ever written.

Saturday, October 17

Kitchen Dog Theater presents Get Up, Stand Up! A Drive-In Celebration of Democracy
Kitchen Dog Theater kicks off its 30th season of theater with a weekly series of singular events called Get Up, Stand Up! A Drive-In Celebration of Democracy. A variety of local artists will perform protest songs from throughout history to celebrate democracy as well as amplify the voices of the local artist community who have struggled to be heard during the pandemic. The drive-in style event will take place weekly through October 31, with a special fourth show on Election Day, November 3.

Shakespeare Dallas presents Shakespeare and the Suffragists, available for streaming through November 30.

Photo by Jennifer Rogers

Shakespeare Dallas presents Shakespeare and the Suffragists, available for streaming through November 30.

event-planner

Movie review

Over-the-top The Bride! makes other Frankenstein movies seem subtle

Photo by Niko Tavernise

Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley in The Bride!.

The story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster is now over 200 years old, with Mary Shelley’s book having been adapted or referenced in close to 500 films. Less common is the character of The Bride of Frankenstein, which existed in the original text but has more often than not been excised in adaptations. Writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal has tried to rectify that by giving the character a big showcase in her new film, The Bride!.

Gyllenhaal has reimagined the story as one in which a woman named Ida (Jessie Buckley) becomes possessed by the spirit of Shelley (also Buckley). At the same time, the already-existing Frankenstein’s monster (Christian Bale) approaches Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening), who specializes in reanimation, with the request to make him a wife. When Ida falls to her death in an “accident” involving her boyfriend (John Magaro), the ideal corpse becomes available.

After Ida’s resurrection, she and the monster become restless being studied by Dr. Euphronius and decide to break out to experience the world. The world, naturally, is not exactly welcoming to them, and soon the couple are on the run for causing mayhem, including a few murders. In hot pursuit are detective Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and his assistant, Myrna Mallow (Penélope Cruz), as well as other authorities.

It’s clear that Gyllenhaal wanted to merge the Frankenstein story with Bonnie & Clyde, especially since she sets the film in the mid-1930s. And that wouldn’t have been a bad idea if having the monster and The Bride going on a crime spree was truly the focus of the movie. But most of the time there’s less intentionality in their misdeeds and more confusion, leading to a muddled plot with no clear direction or end goal in mind.

One of the biggest problems is that Gyllenhaal starts the energy of the film at an 11, giving her and everyone else nowhere to go but down. She dabbles in multiple different tones, at times going the straight drama route and other times making what seems like full-on camp. At one point, she even has the monster and the Bride in a dance sequence set to “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” which would be hilarious as an homage to Young Frankenstein if the film weren’t so disjointed.

Most baffling of all is what Gyllenhaal wants from The Bride character. She morphs multiple times over the course of the film, from close to unintelligible at the beginning to rough-and-tumble at the end. There are hints at the lack of control she has over her autonomy, including Shelley’s possession of her and the monster lying to her about her past, but any commentary that Gyllenhaal might be trying to make gets lost amid the oddity of the film as a whole.

Both Buckley and Bale are all-in for their performances, which definitely fall in the “love it or hate it” dichotomy. Each scene is pitched so high that there’s little nuance to either of them, and neither is on par with their previous Oscar-caliber roles. The high-powered supporting cast of Bening, Sarsgaard, Cruz, and Jake Gyllenhaal is watchable based on previous roles, but none of them elevate this particular movie.

Whatever intentions Maggie Gyllenhaal had in making The Bride! are only halfway legible in a film that can never find its tonal footing. There has rarely been subtlety in movies featuring Frankenstein’s monster and related characters, but this one makes all the others seem like stuffy dramas in comparison.

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The Bride! is now playing in theaters.

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