Buntport Theater

Reviews

Two people talk to each other from inside plexiglass boxes. On the left is a man sitting crosslegged in a short, cluttered box. On the right is a woman sitting on a stool in a narrow box. Above is an empty clothing line.

Westword- Buntport Thinks Outside The Box With Middle Aged People Sitting in Boxes

A clothesline on which tops and bras are hung spans the stage. Other than that, the set consists of four shrouded forms that are eventually unshrouded to reveal four middle-aged people sitting in boxes — if you consider Buntport Theater Company’s Brian Colonna, Erin Rollman, Hannah Duggan and Erik Edborg middle-aged. But as Rollman points out, middle age is a shifting boundary, hard to define, and this is territory explored in the latest Buntport creation, Middle Aged People Sitting in Boxes.

The characters can hear and speak to each other, but they can’t touch each other through the plexiglass barriers of their boxes; they can also stand up and walk these boxes from place to place, creating interesting geometrical configurations. In the box on the right, Colonna struggles with that ubiquitous modern horror: trying to get something done by phone. He can’t access the site he needs online, because it no longer recognizes him. But when, after a long wait, he actually gets a human being named Angela on the phone, she can’t help him, either — because the system says he doesn’t exist. All of this is particularly hard to cope with because he’s tethered to a landline by a long, curly cord and is wearing no pants. Periodically, the others exhort him to please put them on, but he explains that he can’t until he finds his socks — because first socks and then pants is his rule for dressing.

In her box, Duggan occupies herself with her job, which involves classifying data. On the other side of her, Rollman organizes a 25-year high-school reunion on Facebook. And then there’s Edborg, who seems to have moved into a new place and is trying to organize his belongings. This is hard because he’s a hoarder and has also mislabeled his stuff: The box that says “cutlery,” for instance, contains an embroidered pillow. And another box that arrives in the mail labeled “spice rack” turns out to be something else entirely.

What is Middle Aged People Sitting in Boxes about? There are a lot of lists and a lot of attempts on the characters’ part to categorize. This passion for order takes an array of forms, from enumerating all the buildings and businesses in a particular neighborhood to Edborg’s musings about how to use a spice rack when he can name only three spices to how you’re defined by those quizzes that ask what historical personage you’d be or reveal how your favorite fruit exposes your personality. “You’re trying to control the chaos,” Duggan tells Edborg kindly. “That’s what middle-aged people do.”

The idea of order is all mixed up with the idea of data — how we acquire it as well as how we sort it — and that leads to talk about generations: X-ers and Y-ers and Networlders, all of whom view the world in different ways because of the different ways in which the world comes to them. There are references to the usual targets: people’s obsession with their gadgets, the proliferation of emoticons and selfies, the way one generation fails to understand another’s way of using technology — though the cast also points out that dividing human beings into generations with arbitrary cut-off points is deceptive in itself. But the dialogue isn’t obvious: The Buntport crew goes deeper, showing that there’s something profoundly mysterious about the way our brains work, and raising a slew of questions about the ubiquity of facts and the ease with which we can look them up: Does this make people dumber because they no longer know how to research, or smarter because they don’t have to waste time unearthing facts and can use the easily acquired information to deepen understanding?

Since this is a Buntport production, everything is hilariously askew, and the show is both filled with absurdities and dizzyingly clever. The performances are spot-on and the timing impeccable. Middle Aged People does communicate a sense of loss: These people are boxed in, after all, time is inexorably passing, and we’ll never know what’s happened to poor Angela or even if she really exists. Still, there’s a willingness to embrace the unknowable — and even magic in the shape of a little one-horned fairground goat passed off as a unicorn. It may have been just a sad, sickly animal, but there’s something about the idea of a unicorn and our willingness to accept it that transcends lists and data and frees the imagination — just as this play does.

-Juliet Wittman, April 16, 2015,Westword

A woman with short hair sits on a stool in a plexiglass box. She has one leg up on the school and has both hands above her head, holding onto the rim of a hole in the top of the box. Above the box is a clothing lines with only clothes pins on it.

North Denver Tribune- Buntport’s Latest is a Unique, Absurd Look at Who We Are

Buntport Theater’s latest original creation, Middle Aged People Sitting in Boxes, nails the absurdist comedy genre perfectly. While nothing of importance happens in the play, and it presents the “vast swaths of mundanity” that make up most of our reality, the dialogue is engaging, compelling, very funny, and even insightful at times. Many thought-provoking questions are asked, with perhaps the key question coming at the end of the show: “Is that all there is?” This clever, absurd, hilarious production will both challenge and entertain you, in classic Buntport style.

This is the story of four middle aged people (how exactly middle age is defined is the subject of some discourse) living their lives. One is on hold, trying to reach customers service. Another is planning a 25th High School Reunion. The third is checking the supplier websites for Fortune 500 companies and signing up as a WMBE. The last is unpacking after an apparent recent move. Oh, yes, and they are all in large plexiglass boxes on wheels. The four actors quickly establish that this odd environment is normal for them, just a part of life. The boxes function both as the obvious metaphor for isolation, but also a source for some brilliant comic moments.

The language is mundane, everyday stuff, but it is compelling nonetheless. As we watch, we want to know more, we want to know what will happen, even though we know that nothing earth-shattering will occur. Questions are asked and discussed, with much of the discussion about who we are, what labels apply to whom, and what the meaning of different labels is. The formal arrangement and movement of the boxes adds another dimension to the verbal sparring between the characters. Much of the language is delivered in parallel monologues, with the characters sometimes interacting and sometimes in their own worlds, nearly always doing something. The whole show has a lovely rhythm created by the level of conversation, the changes in focus and interaction, and the movement onstage.

The four actors play unique characters, each in their own world and their own reality. Erin Rollman is planning her High School Reunion, interacting with her former classmates via social media on her cell phone. She is flippantly judgmental about those asking questions, making comments that many of us have probably thought at times. Poor Brian Colonna is trying to talk with customer service about his account, but keeps getting stuck on hold. His frustration builds nicely, and he gets to perform most of the show without pants. Erik Edborg is unpacking boxes, genuinely surprised and a little bit amused that the contents don’t match the labels he himself wrote. Hannah Duggan is on her laptop the whole time, researching the websites of Fortune 500 companies. Her work is important to her, and she plugs on and on, without knowing exactly why she is doing it. This may seem very familiar to many of us.

The set, primarily consisting of the four different sized and shaped boxes, is an integral part of the play. The actors can move using the small holes in the bases, and they each have one or two ways to reach outside, but are otherwise trapped. The constraints of the boxes reinforce their separateness, but also create opportunities for wonderful pure silliness. The lighting is consistent and effective, and is used to highlight each nicely in succession during the culmination of the show. Since they are in boxes, the actors use microphones, an element that is necessary and effective. Adam Stone’s sound design includes the notification beeps on Erin’s cell phone, and all the hold music, recorded voices, and customer service reps for Brian.

The four characters are all believable as people, but are in an unrealistic environment (sitting in boxes), doing things that are not completely normal. But we can all relate to what they are doing and who they are. As we watch, we connect with how they feel in their interactions with each other and the world. We laugh both at the craziness of what they are going through (which is really, really funny), but also because we understand and know their experiences. We connect, we laugh, we think, and we are entertained. What more can we ask from theater?

-Craig Williamson, April 16, 2015,North Denver Tribune

North Denver Tribune- Buntport Revives Tommy Lee Jones Goes to the Opera Alone

Only Buntport Theater could create a tight, complete, meaningful, and funny production where the lead actor is a nearly-full-sized puppet of Tommy Lee Jones, operated and voiced by four members of the company, sitting in a diner having a piece of pie. No other company could even conceive of this idea, let alone build the puppet, develop the skills to operate it, and write a script that interlaces a serious conversation about art and performance with comic bits and surprises that no audience member could possibly anticipate. This is a revival of one of Buntport’s most popular shows from the last several years, the brilliant and successful Tommy Lee Jones Goes to the Opera Alone. Several of the shows have sold out, so don’t wait to make a reservation and go see this brilliant and unique production.

Tommy Lee is a puppet, sitting at a table in a diner. As the show opens, the puppet sits alone and lifeless, but soon Erin Rollman, Evan Weissman, Brian Colonna, and Erik Edborg wander in to bring the puppet to life. But first, they turn the convention of “invisible puppeteers” on its head. These are characters in their own right, and in the first moments of the play we learn that Weissman, Rollman, and Colonna, who operate the right hand, left hand, and head of Tommy Lee, are in a love triangle. But just as soon as we meet them, they zip up and are completely covered in black, and the puppet comes to life. Edborg sits at the table with the puppet, ensconced in black like the others, speaking the voice of the puppet. Hannah Duggan plays Jane, the (actual human) waitress that talks with the puppet, brings him pie and coffee, and discusses art, opera, and how Puccini’s opera Turandot “should” have ended. As we watch the remarkably expressive puppet, we are paradoxically impressed with how he is brought to life and frequently reminded that the puppeteers are not invisible, as they silently interact with each other and even the puppet himself. This is all exquisitely and impossibly consistent, and in and of itself is wonderful, but is just the medium that delivers the story.

The five onstage members of Buntport, along with the always-offstage SamAnTha Schmitz, create their productions as an integrated whole. The script writing is not separate from the directing or designing, which results in a remarkably cohesive production. That said, the show is very well directed – the puppeteers step out just enough, creating surprise and intrigue as they do, without overusing the device. The staging is simple, but direct and effective.

The acting, both by the actors and by the puppet, is wonderful. Edborg captures the iconic Texas drawl that we all know so well from many films. The mechanics of the operation of the puppet are fascinating, with the hands, fingers, eyebrows, and eyelids moving and grasping, showing expression and emotion. But the technical functioning of the puppet doesn’t dominate things more than necessary. It is enough to impress and intrigue the audience, but it is still there to deliver the story. Duggan’s Jane is completely natural as she talks with the puppet, and becomes very animated explaining alternate endings to Turandot. And while we do not see their faces very much, Weissman, Rollman, and Colonna clearly communicate the situation and emotions in silence.

The set is simple yet appropriate. The table and chairs capture a diner perfectly. The floor is Formica tiles that blend to black at the edges, with individual tiles hanging in space. The lighting sets the mood well. The costumes include an accurate diner waitress uniform, and neutral black coverings for the four puppeteers, which are used to both conceal them and highlight the moments when their characters are revealed. The sound is effectively integrated as well, with some fun lip-syncing, and the truly lovely music of Puccini integrated throughout.

Tommy Lee Jones (the puppet) states at one point that “art may be the saving grace of our civilization.” Buntport Theater’s production of Tommy Lee Jones Goes to the Opera Alone is a brilliant mix of puppetry, comedy, convention-bashing, grand opera, and thoughtful discussion of art. The play starts by talking about art and opera, and then transforms itself into grand opera. The medium that is used to deliver this story is clever, but it is only the start – the story, the interaction, the exposition, and the climax all combine to make this both meaningful and comic genius.

-Craig Williamson, January 21, 2015, North Denver Tribune

A man stands with his head back singing or yelling, perhaps. He wears a suit on the top and stockings and high heels on the bottom. Behind him, two people are seated on a pink couch. One is a man in a yellow shirt talking excitedly. The other is a woman in a blue t-shirt looking on a cell phone looking annoyed.

Denver Post- Frisky business afoot in Buntport’s “Naughty Bits”

The Buntport Theater Company’s erudite cut-ups are at it again. And nearly at their best with their latest, collaboratively wrought play, “Naughty Bits,” running through Oct. 4.

Aided by an Art Historian, a Romance Novelist and a well-to-do couple straight out of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, this nimble comedy ponders bodies and their parts, gender and class, and, most pointedly, the disappearance of a certain appendage from the Lansdowne Herakles.

That’s Hercules to you.

For more than a century, the Roman homage to the Greek hero resided at the Lansdowne House in London. In 1951, J. Paul Getty bought the stone demigod — lion skin hanging by his side, club resting on his shoulder. It holds a prominent place at the Getty Villa in Malibu, Calif.

You’ll learn much of this as the play’s distinct characters begin to inch toward one another across eras.

The laughs can be brainy and broad, physically deft and metaphysically agile. Think Lucille Ball by way of Jacques Derrida — after a chocolate edible.

Wait, did the Romance Novelist just mention Marcel Duchamp? Of course she did.

Erin Rollman and Brian Colonna are terrific as Jenny and Harry, the 1920s couple, more insouciant and frisky than roaring.

As the Art Historian, Erik Edborg allows his hands to flit and his voice to flutter as he projects slides of the sculpture in question.

“He’s got magnetism, even for marble,” he says nervously.

Hannah Duggan’s turn as the Romance Novelist on a writing vacation — and often on the phone to her editor — hits heady and populist notes.

About the company’s fifth member: SamAnTha Schmitz. Much like the Herakles’ missing part — the cause of so much contemplation — her absence is potent.

Operating lights and sound, she cues actors and audience to shifts in time and mood. We have her to thank as the action nails an absurdly touching (and groping) vibe, reminiscent of Studio 54 during its heyday.

-Lisa Kennedy, September 27, 2014, Denver Post

A man from the 1950's stands at a projector screen gesturing to an image of a statue of Herakles. Behind him, a woman from today stands on a pink carpet talking on a cell phone. Behind her, a woman from the 1920's sit on a couch looking into a cosmetic mirror.

Westword- Buntport’s New Show Is Naughty But Very Nice

When the members of Buntport Theater Company are at the top of their form, wonderful things happen. And with Naughty Bits, they’re at their peak both in terms of performance and — since this company creates all its plays collaboratively — in terms of the humor, flow and inventiveness of the script, which happens to focus on a missing member.

Naughty Bits tells three related stories, all surrounding the figure of the famous Landsdowne Hercules, or Heracles, a Roman statue of the mythic hero holding a club over his left shoulder and the skin of the Nemean Lion he killed as his first great labor in his right hand. The statue was restored in the eighteenth century — except for its broken-off penis. In one of the three stories, set in the 1920s, an inconceivably wealthy fellow called Harry conducts an extended flirtation with his witty and seductive mistress, Jenny. She’s teasingly scornful of the Hercules statue — which he’s purchased — and all the other great artworks on his English estate, also recently purchased. Then there’s the 1950s Art Historian, insanely passionate about his work, fumbling with his slides and projector as he expatiates on the wonders of the statue, its missing part and his thoughts about art in general to us, the audience. The contemporary Romance Novelist, meanwhile, having done some research into the Landsdowne Hercules, is pitching a book proposal to her editor. She wants to put the statue in the home of one Lady Louisa, who will fall in love with it, missing genitalia and all. As she munches on hot dogs and spins her torrid, silly, soulful plot, the Novelist’s relationship with the distant male editor is revealed as more and more complicated.

The three segments may be separate, with each protagonist in his or her own reality, but they gradually come together over the course of the evening, and the last line of dialogue in almost every scene leads suggestively into the next, until the ideas meld together to form a kind of whole, a meditation on love, sex, art, history, power, money and gender that ends with a fleshy (sort of), outrageous and snortingly funny climax. Naughty Bits illustrates the way a work of art travels through time, changing both physically and in the way it’s interpreted, taking on different colorations and significances in different eras and in individual imaginations. This Hercules is a paradox — a hero, a love god, the epitome of male beauty — but lacking the essential male appendage. So he represents — at least to the Novelist — both male and female or neither, a kind of coming together in peace and mutual understanding.

Naughty Bits also plays with the assumed gulf between high and low art. Of course a connoisseur’s interest in a naked statue has a touch of low prurience, and this is certainly true of the Art Historian, who both thrills to the statue’s aesthetics and is rendered inarticulate by his distress and excitement at the whole genital issue. Meanwhile the Romance Novelist, while conceding her usual work is smut, is clearly reaching for something new here; she’s in the puzzled, open and exploratory state of anyone absorbed in genuine artistic creation. Buntport has illustrated this dichotomy in previous work, demystifying high art and taking down artistic pretension while still treating great works with profound respect. In Tommy Lee Jones Goes to Opera Alone, for example, a waitress beefs up the plot for La Boheme and sings happily along with the arias. (Tommy Lee Jones will return in January.)

Erin Rollman’s Jenny is a comic masterpiece, elegantly slutty, a parody of a 1920s movie siren. Brian Colonna is crazy funny as her suave lover, Harry. Erik Edborg has made a practice of creating outlandish characters and inhabiting them so fully that you absolutely believe in them, and he does it here with the deliciously mannered Art Historian. The inimitable Hannah Duggan brings all kinds of passionate, angry, vulnerable conviction to the Romance Novelist, along with a strong dash of feminist rage.

But Naughty Bits is anything but dense or polemical. It’s a dazzling, skillfully structured, swift-moving and original comedy, filled with insane imaginings, daring bits and hilarious bons mots. And when those deeper currents surface, they sparkle and flash, too.

-Juliet Wittman, September 24, 2014, Westword

A down shot of a woman sitting at a desk, talking on the phone. She has a pad of paper in front of her. Behind, out-of-focus, in the distance, a woman and a man sit on a pink couch. She has her legs crossed over his.

North Denver Tribune- Buntport blends tapestry of stories in comic Naughty Bits

Several times a year, the five members of Buntport Theater embark on a creative process that results in a new, unique, frequently brilliant, usually hilarious, and always completely original production. Their latest offering is Naughty Bits, inspired by the conspicuously missing penis on the otherwise fully restored Roman statue known as the Lansdowne Hercules. Brian Colonna, Erin Rollman, Erik Edborg, Hannah Duggan, and SamAnTha Schmitz of Buntport could not resist creating a play based on this curious situation. Their comedy is an intertwining of three separate storylines from three separate time periods, all related to the statue, that blend and interact in clever and very funny ways, then finally boil over into hilarious craziness.

The three storylines include a couple in the 1920s who acquire the statue when they purchase an English manor home; an Art Historian making a presentation about the statue in the 1950s; and a present day Romance Novelist trying to write a story involving the statue. The writing is clever and funny, filled with many double entendres (natch), perfectly timed transitions between the stories, visual sight gags, and suggestions of connections left partially to imagination. The construction of the play is intricate and brilliant — the three stories start separate, then begin to blend and merge, finally colliding together in a verbal and visual cacophony.

With Buntport, it is difficult to separate out “direction” from playwriting and acting, but there are elements worth noting. The instantaneous transitions between the storylines are clear and sharp, with the scene being left continuing without sound. All three are simultaneously going on for nearly all of the play, with the characters moving in and out of each other’s space in a carefully choreographed dance. This approach allows for contrasting the three stories, clearly illustrating the commonalities and the differences, and enables some incredibly funny bits.

As actors, the Buntporters are at their best with comedy, but also able to add an edge of meaning. Erik Edborg is hilariously idiosyncratic as the Art Historian, with wonderful expressiveness and great mannerisms. Hannah Duggan is the brusque and forthright Romance Novelist, explicitly describing things in her story, as well as ridiculing herself and romance novels in general. As the couple, Brian Colonna and Erin Rollman seem comfortable together, and surprisingly natural as they begin cross-dressing in their 1920s costumes. The four work in tight coordination throughout, and especially as the stories begin to blend and merge, and finally in the climactic conclusion.

The set is simple, with elegant Victorian furniture appropriate for Lansdowne House, and a nice 1950s-era slide projector and screen. The lighting is a key element to this production, with different colors for each of the three stories helping to highlight the transitions, without sacrificing the basic need for illumination of the scenes. The control and coordination tying the light cues to the dialogue is notable. The costumes were spot on, placing the characters in their appropriate time frames, and near the end, adding an over-the-top comic element as well.

After some more serious productions recently, with Naughty Bits, Buntport returns their focus to comedy. There are some bits of social commentary here, but mostly, this is pure comedy, clever and creative, done as only Buntport can. They have pushed themselves beyond their own comfort zones in some ways, and in doing so, will challenge your expectations. Finally, they will surprise you with a hilarious and remarkably consistent ending to a clever, interesting, and funny play.

-Craig Williamson, September 18, 2014, North Denver Tribune

A man with sunglasses and a brightly colored shirt sits in a brown driver's seat, twisting to stare seriously at the camera. Next to him, in a driver's side mirror, is a woman in the same sunglasses. Both are pointing

Boulder Weekly- Letting Peggy Jo take the wheel A not-so-classic bank robber story in ‘Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing’

Most of what follows is true — the true story of a woman too big for her own life. Peggy Jo Tallas was mired in the post-women’s-liberation problem that faces so many women: If you didn’t grow up to be a wife and a mother, what did you grow up to be? And is it just a whole lot of nothing?

Peggy Jo started robbing banks in the 1990s. Maybe it was because she needed money for her mother’s medical expenses. Maybe it was because she was bored.

For years, law enforcement searched for this calm, collected, seemingly professional bank robber, but she’d always worn a beard, cowboy hat and sunglasses – they were searching for a man. That’s just a punch line in a much longer, funnier story that ends with more punch than you might expect in Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing, a collaboration by square product theatre and Buntport Theater Company.

Emily Harrison, founder of Boulder’s square product theatre and a general theatre powerhouse, knew the story of her fellow Texan, Peggy Jo Tallas, and approached Denver-based Buntport Theater Company with the threads of a story they could take to the stage.

The original, single-act, fulllength production that approaches Peggy’s story through the framework of the FBI agent trying to piece together the how and why. To help him out, he consults 20-years-worth of Peggy Jos: 40-something Peggy Jo by Harrison, two at or near 60-something Peggy Jos by Hannah Duggan and Erin Rollman, and one of her as “Cowboy Bob,” the bank robber disguise, played by Brian Colonna. Erik Edborg plays FBI Agent Steve Powell, who is both reading from and taking notes in his file about Ms. Tallas.

Nobody leaves the stage for the duration of the performance.

When they introduce Agent Steve to their tale, they have a cautionary note: Most of what follows is true. Because, as they say, showing is better than telling, he gets to witness her playing out her own life, even talking herself into her first bank robbery as the Peggy Jos huddle and assure one another they’ve got what it takes. As needed, they step into auxiliary roles: bank tellers, a fast-talking RV salesman, her deadbeat brother and their ailing mother.

“The story is true even if the telling of it is a little bit loosey-goosey,” Duggan’s version of Peggy Jo tells the FBI agent. She’s the most forthcoming of the Peggy Jos, caught in the middle of the other two, it seems, in a place that has her looking both forward and back and realizing how little we can tell of either place – where it was we came from that led us here and what exactly lies ahead.

We do know how she’s going to get there – because all great Buntport shows seem to involve a set piece with tires, there’s an RV on stage, built just to the floor and furniture without so much as a door or windshield. They do, however, have a sink, kitchen table and bed, and at the front, a steering wheel and a rear view mirror, all in a caramel brown and mustard yellow that recalls the ’70s. It’s always one Peggy Jo or another at the wheel.

A billboard that would be in the rearview mirror of the RV reads “If you’re ready to start your future today… Guaranty Bank” and becomes a device the script uses to give the Peggy Jos a chance to insert more commentary about the events than her generally reticent nature would allow – not to say that she’s not outspoken Just to say, she’s the kind of personality that uses boisterousness and bravado to obscure most chances for personal insights.

It’s a decidedly funny ride, punctuated with moments of physical comedy, absurdity and self-conscious humor. But it also reads a little bit like being invited to find someone else’s inside jokes funny when you’ve just hopped on board with a decidedly unreliable source. It’s tough to know whether audiences appear lukewarm on that plan because it’s like a panty-grab on the first date, or if, even when you get the joke, someone else’s inside jokes just have a hard time making it to the laugh-out-loud level of funny.

But. If you’re ready to go all in on the ride… Guaranty Bank.

Elizabeth Miller, June 12, 2014, Boulder Weekly

Just the insides of an RV sit on a platform with wheels. Sitting in the RV are two people, one lounging in the driver's seat, the other sitting in the back on the bed. In the background in a road sign for a bank and an FBI officer with his back turned.

Denver Post- What becomes a legend? asks poignant “Peggy Jo”

It’s OK if you detect a trace of Walter White and a touch of “American Hustle ” in “Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing,” onstage at Bunport though June 21.

After all the tale of Peggy Jo Tallas, who in the early 1990s was one of Texas’ more vexing bankrobbers, is surely one of reinvention and of a quasi-accidental life of crime embraced.

“Most of what follows is true,” cautions one of the four actors playing the title character. Three are women: Hannah Duggan, Erin Rollman and Emily Harrison. Brian Colonna completes the quartet, wearing a bushy beard seemingly borrowed from Yukon Jack or, closer to home, Colorado Rockie Charlie Blackmon.

His character is credited as “Peggy Jo Tallas as Cowboy Bob.” Erik Edborg plays FBI agent Steve Powell, who tries to get Peggy Jo to open up after she is first apprehended.

In 2005, Texas Monthly published “The Last Ride of Cowboy Bob,” by Skip Hollandsworth. The play’s go-to source, it begins benignly enough: “Peggy Jo Tallas was, by all accounts, the classic good-hearted Texas woman. For much of her adult life, she lived with her ailing mother in a small apartment in the Dallas suburbs.”

The rub? Peggy would don male attire, glue on facial hair, pull a cowboy hat down over her wig, walk into banks in towns like Irving, Garland, and fatefully, Tyler, hand the teller a note and walk out with cash.

When she was arrested in 1992, family and friends were gobsmacked by her exploits, according to the article. And Agent Powell, who’d been bedeviled by a robber he dubbed Cowboy Bob, was just as astonished to learn the true identity of his quarry.

Of course, true identities are a complicated notion. What truths does the story of a tight-lipped, cross-dressing (for the purposes of heists) bank robber actually reveal? That is the quandary at the heart of “Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing.”

How do yarns get spun? How do they figure in and entwine with popular and the broader culture? For instance, a friend of Peggy Jo said Peggy’s favorite movie was 1969’s outlaw gem “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” starring – all the Peggys seem to agree – “two of the prettiest men” ever. The iconic scene of Paul Newman riding a bike with Katharine Ross set to “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” becomes fodder for debates about the merits of B.J. Thomas’ No. 1 hit.

Still there’s more here than easy winks. According to other not-quite-reliable sources, Peggy was fond of cooking up “fajita meat.” Who calls it “fajita meat” for goodness sake? Yet that phrase becomes a staple of the legend. So does her drinking Pepsi out of a coffee mug.

When we can’t (or don’t want to) get at the roots of a tall tale, little details are treated as huge clues. The idea that Peggy started robbing banks to pay for her mother’s medication is touched on but never exploited. Remember, it didn’t take long into “Breaking Bad” to sense Walter’s cancer was not the only reason he plunged deeper and deeper into the meth biz.

Smart, poignant, this adventure in story-telling – and story-withholding – is the work of Buntport and Boulder’s Square Product Theatre. This is their first collaboration, though neither is stranger to putting its big brain together with another troupe and seeing what happens.

What happens here is at once funny and sad and thought-provoking – often simultaneously. The four Buntport performers – Edborg, Duggan, Rollman and Colonna – bring their typically deft comedic timing to the show. Square Product’s Harrison injects a tempering vulnerability.

The scenic design – chiefly the chassis of a RV – sets the tone for themes about escape and home and, yes, America.

The script is careful to hew to the facts – details – as learned mostly through Hollandsworth’s article. I can imagine some might have wished for more artistic license.

Instead “Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing” feels respectful – of Peggy Jo’s silences, yes, but also the audience’s ability to consider deeper questions while knowing some answers are never fully forthcoming.

As Agent Powell says “There’s more than one way to choke a dog with pudding.” Right. Uh, we think.

-Lisa Kennedy, June 7, 2014, Denver Post

A man with sunglasses and a brightly colored shirt sits in a brown driver's seat, twisting to stare seriously at the camera. Next to him, in a driver's side mirror, a woman in the same sunglasses and shirt is smiling.

GetBoulder.com- Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing

As we have come to expect, Buntport has taken a relatively simple story about a female bank robber who disguises herself as a man and turns it on its ear. For instance, instead of one Peggy Jo, there are four – three female and one male. Two of them represent Peggy Jo early in her robbery career and two twenty years later. The fifth character is Steve, an FBI agent who pulls the story together and tracks her down

Part of the set is a giant billboard that proclaims “If you’re ready to start your future today, Guaranty Bank!” With hilarious variations, this became the clarion call of the group in a manner similar to Jeff Foxworthy’s multiple riffs on “You might be a redneck.” The set consists of a huge motor home stripped of its outer shell in which getaways are made and life is lived between robberies. Grandma highlights the smutty parts of romance novels; corn nuts are consumed and explanations made to the tag-along FBI agent. A sixth character in the production is a pet duck included because of Peggy Jo’s real job in a petting zoo. When asked after the show “Which came first, the story or the duck?” the unanimous response was “the duck.”

It is so hard to explain the threads of humor that wend through any Buntport production and the inventiveness with which they tackle their chosen subject matter. The emphasis may vary from one company member to another from production to production, but the creativity and unity of the group is always of the highest caliber. For instance, usual Buntporter Evan was missing from this show, but Emily K. Harrison from Boulder’s Square Product Company stepped in to become one of the Peggy’s. Most of the story was moved forward this time by company member Hannah Duggan until the last five minutes when Erin Rollman stepped forward to take the final spotlight. But all along the way, they were united by the work of Erik Edborg as the FBI agent/used car salesman and Brian Colonna as the one male Peggy (i.e., Cowboy Bob, her alias).

These shows sell out. Sometimes they come back to be revisited; sometimes they don’t. So your best idea is to see them the first time when you can.

A WOW factor of 8.5!

-Beki Pineda, June 7, 2014, GetBoulder.com

Just the insides of an RV sit on a platform with wheels. Sitting in the RV are two people, one lounging in the driver's seat, the other sitting in the back on the bed. In the background in a road sign for a bank and an FBI officer with his back turned.

North Denver Tribune- Fascinating story of Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing

“Most of what follows is true.” This declaration, made several times by each of the four actors playing the title character in the joint Buntport Theater/square product theatre production of Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing, frames the evening perfectly at the start. Not surprisingly, it is difficult to tell what is true and what is not. Since, as noted in the play “all storytelling is selective,” and as Buntport has argued many times in the past, most articulately in their 2008 production of Musketeer, art not only allows us to go beyond literal truth, it demands it. Telling a story is a creative process – it may start with something that “really happened,” but to stay tied to that is to limit the expression of creativity. Buntport understands this “truth,” never flinching as they frequently remind the audience watching not to believe everything, but entice us to enjoy the story and its telling for what they are: good theater.

The story of Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing is fascinating. Without the convention of mundane sequential time, the play tells us of Peggy Jo Tallas, a woman who robbed several banks in Texas wearing a fake beard, sunglasses, and a cowboy hat. We learn who she is, a few highlights of her life, and also explore some of the reasons that she may have done what she did. Four actors play Peggy Jo, each capturing different aspects of the character, with the fifth actor playing Agent Steve Powell. Throughout the play, the actors each take on additional roles but do so in character, which adds another layer of storytelling. There are also diverse, unique, and sometimes hilarious elements woven throughout, including most notably a pet duck, a billboard quote, and references to the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. All of this makes for a script with depth, meaning, comedy, intrigue, entertainment, and even some suspense.

All elements of the show, including creating, directing, and designing, are done collaboratively at Buntport, this time with Emily K. Harrison of square product theatre added in. The direction of the show is tight, using the wide stage well, staging scenes across in front of and on the clever representation of an RV that dominates the stage. The insertion of an unexpected dance number near the end was a pleasant surprise, adding yet another dimension to the storytelling.

Buntport’s actors have a way of concealing their acting talent with outrageousness, letting the audience think they are just being silly, when there is really much more substance and skill there. Each of the four title characters captures a different aspect of Peggy Jo. Hannah Duggan delivers much of the narrative content, revealing much about the character, both in the exposition, in the way she tells the story, and the way she interacts with others. Emily K. Harrison is the younger, quirky Peggy Jo, also capturing Peggy Jo’s mother well. Brian Colonna (who has a lot of fun playing a woman disguised as a man without affectation) is the bold, bank robbing Peggy Jo. Colonna also is notable with his exceptional hip action in the dance sequence. Erin Rollman is the more intense, serious, and even audacious Peggy Jo, silent throughout most of the show, but compelling us to listen when she does speak. Rollman covers the more serious material very well, and brings the comedy back to reality at the conclusion of the show. The only actor not playing Peggy Jo is Erik Edborg, as FBI Agent Steve Powell, trying to present himself as the objective factual source, but never able to separate himself from the story, especially when uncomfortably confronted with his own inconsistencies.

The set design is wonderful, tightly integrated with the production due to the collaborative nature of its creation. The chassis of an RV sits on a road going across the stage, “heading towards nothing, coming from nothing”. A single billboard emerges out of the back wall, creating an interesting visual perspective. The lighting enhances things nicely, including the outline of the RV on the back wall during the night scene. The costumes meet the needs of each character well, helping to selectively connect the different personas of Peggy Jo, and adding simple elements such as a jacket or a pair of glasses to transform characters temporarily.

Peggy Jo and the Desolate Nothing is quintessential Buntport. An interesting story is told, with the storytelling is as important as the story – the two are integrated and inseparable. This production is new, fresh, and unlike anything else you will see anywhere else. So give yourself a treat and head down to Buntport for an evening with Peggy Jo.

-Craig Williamson, June 6, 2014, North Denver Tribune