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Why arent the genres that traffic outside reality more popular on the modern stage?
Its thrilling when theater steers hard into the supernatural, mimesis and budgets be damned!
Horrors final frontier is, after all, the sub-basement of the human psyche.
Still, there are thrills to be had in Tiffany Nichole Greenes production.
Everybody got a secret, a tense, tear-stained young woman tells us as the play begins.
That thing thats like a hot iron through your soul…. eatin you alive.
Everything started, she says, rancor thickening her voice, with him.
Wait a minute, Avery marvels, is … is your stammer gone?
Johnny left town a shy, shaky oddball.
Hes come back as a smooth-talking musician whose star is on the rise.
He said you was somethin else….
When we first meet Mama, shes bristling with righteous energy.
Get right with the Lord(t!)
Mama demands, and we all snap to attention.
Its another bargain with the devil.
Much to Mamas dismay, Johnny and Avery run off together, seeking love, music, and freedom.
And when an accident with a horse (or could it beSatan?)
Now Greene gets to encourage her designers to have some big fun with the horror playbook.
Her wild screeches in the dark cause real goosebumps.
The farther the show leans towards pure horrorin all its blackout-and-blood-curdling-scream deliciousnessthe more exciting and free it feels.
Covenantis at the Roundabouts Steinberg Center through December 3.
