Dug Up Digs Deep
Written by Ryan E. Johnson   
(l to r) Jessie Tilton, Jude Hickey, Liz Fisher
Photo: Trevor Lemoine

Cyndi Williams and Austin Playhouse score a twisted hit.

The Austin Playhouse’s latest production is a real star-studded affair, bringing together some of the top actors and one of the top writers in Austin to create a deep, chilling ghost story that’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Playwright Cyndi Willims' Dug Up, directed here by Lara Toner, tells the tale of a man, who has lost everything, and the events that come forward to change his life for the worst.


Austin Critics Table award-winning actor Jude Hickey takes center stage in this gothic ghost story, as the dimwitted, but sentimental, Dewitt. He has lost everything he owns, and now spends his days sleeping in the courtyard of his family’s bed and breakfast, and digging up and re-burying the bones and the animals he’s lost. These animal bones, of his dog Flossy and his three birds Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm, represent the only friends he has left, except for the ever-present specter of his dead sister, Lissa.

In the beginning, we see Lissa, played by Hyde Park Theatre star Jessie Tilton, as a naïve but lovable young girl, and members of the audience may take the play to be a kind of dark comedy. As the play progresses, however, the innocent quirks we once found charming take on a frightening air. The more we find out about her, the more her dopey exterior begins to darken, and when she finally begins to break out of her innocent mold, and her anger comes flying like a furious hurricane, the play takes on a much more sinister tone, and all the audience’s preconceptions are thrown out the door.

Jude Hickey as Dewitt in Cyndi Williams' Dug Up
Photo: Trevor Lemoine
Liz Fisher takes the stage, once again, as one of her signature strong females. This time a bitter, cuckolded young wife who is trying to get used to life without her husband, while seducing Dewitt to help fill the void. Throughout the play, she steals many of the scenes she’s in, especially when she’s telling the story of what may or may not have happened to her husband. The horrific tale is told while she struts sensually across the stage, leaving Dewitt, and admittedly many of the young men in the theater seats, stuck in a bizarre state somewhere between disgust and arousal. Though she comes off as hard and abrasive in the beginning, the shell does begin to crack by the second act, where she finally shows some real sensitivity, as disaster strikes and she wants to save her new lover from the doom that awaits him.

The real star of this play is its author, Cyndi Williams, who already has a number of terrific plays to her name, winning numerous awards and receiving critical praise around the state for her thought-provoking dramas. This time, her talent lies in creating a world so real that we feel we could reach out and touch it, yet takes it one step off, like something we’d find in a nightmare. She pushes us in slowly, gradually, until we are wrapped within her dream world as if it is our own, where we’re left to stay until she sees fit to set us free. With this work, she creates not just characters, but entire families, each member well-drawn, adding their own special something to the narrative. Even the animals in the story play major roles, especially the hopeless bug-eyed Chihuahua, Flossy. When the characters meet their inevitable fates, we can’t help but weep for them, as we would weep for our own friends and family. It hurts even more when we realize that many of the horrible stories that the characters tell are based upon actual events.

With Halloween around the corner, there’s a full slate of spooky Austin plays for theater lovers to enjoy, but few have the passion or heartbreaking honesty that you’ll find in Cyndi Williams’ latest project. Dug Up is a mature, haunting tale that is sure to stick with you long after you’ve left the theater, haunting your dreams with its gothic Southern fright.

Dug Up is playing through November 10 at Austin Playhouse Theater (Penn Field on South Lamar) Thursdays-Saturdays at 8:00pm and Sundays at 5:00pm. Tickets are $20 ($10 for students), and are available at the 512.476.0084.

 

Jessie Tilton and Jude Hickey
Photo: Trevor Lemoine
 
 

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