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.

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Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first but not by much

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films likeM3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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