Review: Blasting Bogosian: BITTER HONEY at The Wyly in Dallas

Alexandra Bonifield

Eric Bogosian is a blast. If you miss the chance to see him perform BITTER HONEY: The Best of 100(Monologues) at the Wyly Theatre, with two shows concluding the solo run on 2/13 (7pm and 10pm), you just missed the chance to see one of the best performances to grace any Dallas Arts District stage to date…Dallas doesn’t recognize its good fortune. Bogosian doesn’t tour any more. Dallas got the nod, out of his fondness for the burg from Talk Radio filming days in Las Colinas.

Four different shows create unique, jaw-dropping evenings, each carefully constructed out of this Pulitzer-nominated playwright-monologist’s seminal compendium of contemporary monologues, replete with well-integrated verbal and visual vulgarity. Structured to look improvised but not…nary a comma, raised eyebrow, or pause appears out of congruence. It’s genius at play. Like he’s just some dude who wandered in from the street and decided to engage an audience by enacting a story he just made up. Or maybe he’s actually one of those weird guys he portrays, or seven of them, or all one hundred. No wonder Joseph Papp and Oliver Stone got behind this artist when they encountered him in the 80’s.

Witness a virtuoso, snapshot immersion in satire and sardonic life perspective that reveals a helluva lot about the human condition and social convention…one that will make you wince, laugh, cry, tingle, start, and wonder about the permeable boundaries between life and art. Every so often during each show, Bogosian shares a brief glimpse of himself, that manic man peering out from behind a curtain of mask and magic, eyes shining like a small boy about to share the best secret ever. With every single person in the audience, privately.

Tonight’s shows: At 7pm his performance focuses on material from Pounding Nails In the Floor with My Forehead (1994). His 10pm late night set, adult-oriented and the most controversial in content, will draw from material from all four shows, plus a bit extra thrown in for spice. “I like to perform off balance, not get tied down too neatly. Saturday night late you’ll see all the bits I have the most fun with. My solos are always about the core element in theatricality, raw and visceral.” Maybe I’ll see you there.

Eric Bogosian: Bitter Honey The Best of 100(Monologues), directed by Jo Bonney, runs February 11 and 12 at 8pm, and February 13 at 7pm and 10pm at The Wyly Theatre, 2400 Flora Street, Dallas TX. Part of the “Off Broadway on Flora” Series.