Tulsa World - September 15, 2004
By MICHAEL SMITH 9/15/2004
Heather Sams (left) and Joseph Gomez (right) listen to the unique stories David Jefferis has to tell. RIP STELL/Tulsa World
Once upon a time, there was a Nightingale Theater founder who wanted to direct a play for the first time in a long time.
And she looked and she looked and she looked.
She looked high-brow and she looked low-brow, and she finally found something that fit perfectly with the Nightingale Theater's reason for being: Presenting theater that you won't see anywhere else in Tulsa.
Sara Cruncleton's result is "Poona . . . and Other Stories for Children (Not a Play for Children)," the full title of which is not printable here.
Curious? Well, what can be said is that playwright Jeff Goode's sexually explicit comedy uses the formula for children's fairy tales to send up advertising, politics, religion, TV, the media and even children's fairy tales.
Poona (played by Heather Sams) is the protagonist, a doggie looking for her Prince Charming (John Cruncleton). Her sexual talents earn her some measure of celebrity, as well as some moral predicaments.
One humorous bit shows The Man Who Could Sell Anything tricking Poona into endorsing cigarettes. You've heard that smoking kills? It does here, as the villain underscores the ill effects of smoking on children by shooting at tiny tots.
Another trendy poke at so-called "society's ills" has one teen character -- Suzy-Suzy Cyber Assassin -- so fascinated by the Internet and video games that she turns into a rampaging killer.
"I wanted to be a little bit daring, and I saw the title first, and of course it pops out," Sara Cruncleton said. "I read it and found it's really not as foul as the title suggests. I realized that the name is part of the joke."
She asks that those attending arrive with just one thing besides the admission price: an open mind.
"I think that this play kind of points out that there are some things that we maybe take for granted because we see them every day, like how much TV rules our lives on a daily basis, how we sometimes plop our children down in front of it as a baby sitter," she said.
"You know, you ask people a question about a novel and they have no idea what you're talking about. But you ask them about a sitcom, and 90 percent of the people know what happened on 'Friends' last night."
The cast also includes David Dillinger Jefferis, Ed Sullivan, Jason Watts, Joseph Gomez, Valerie Stefan, Mark Miller, James Wilson, Sara Wilemon, Dale Sams, Katrina Lofgren, George Romero, Angela Adams and Lynn Kelsey.
POONA ... AND OTHER STORIES FOR CHILDREN (NOT A PLAY FOR CHILDREN)
Who: Nightingale Theater
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, also 8 p.m. Sept. 23-25
Where: Nightingale Theater, 1416 E. Fourth St.
Tickets: $8, 583-8487 or at the door
Note: For mature audiences only