Review: POPCORN FALLS at Theatre Suburbia

THEATRE SUBURBIA is truly one of Houston’s gems for community productions that define a well-rounded city’s cultural scene. They are an all-volunteer arts organization that has been around for more than sixty-four years! The company has produced over four hundred shows and guarantees that your friends and neighbors are doing these plays. Nobody gets flown in from a bigger city, and nobody does this for any reason other than the love of acting and entertaining folks. I bring all of this up because POPCORN FALLS is a piece that no other theater in this city could pull off (at least nobody offering any kind of equity contract). It hinges on being a little less polished and a lot more committed to a shabby, chic, comforting quality than others can pull off. In anybody else's hands, this production could never have this much charm or truth. This is one of the best reasons to take the trek out to their Northwest Houston location and see what they do best. 

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POPCORN FALLS is a simple two-person play where two actors take on portraying an entire town! POPCORN FALLS is a small hamlet that recently lost its famous waterfall because of a dam built upstream from it, and its tourist industry is dying. They need funds to weather the storm, but the biggest one available? It’s an art grant, and only if Popcorn Falls has a theater can they claim it. So the mayor and his trusty janitor go off on a campaign to get the entire town into a community theater show that will be created within a week! Two actors get to play almost twenty roles, so I immediately thought of GREATER TUNA. But in GREATER TUNA, each character gets a significant scene and has time to change completely before the next one comes out. With POPCORN FALLS, often there are four or five characters on stage at once, so these two guys are playing ADHD characters, often jumping simply for seconds at a time! It’s a wild and fun ride, and I felt tired just watching it! 

Sam Martinez and Dean R. Dicks are the only people brave (or foolish) enough to attempt this script. Part of being great at acting is willing to look stupid onstage. You must sacrifice your sense of coolness to win at slapstick frenetic comedy like this. But boy, these guys are not afraid! Sam Martinez is a well-known actor here in Houston, and he is so gosh-darn loveable in anything he does that it is a joy to see him here. His comic timing is off the charts, and surprisingly, he does romantic comedy well, too (his Becky convinced me he could do some Julia Roberts parts). Sam is in his wheelhouse here, and he’s a whirling dervish of impersonations and creating a character with nothing else but a twitch or a glance. He’s brilliant. But let’s not discount his equally on-point co-star, Dean R. Dicks. Dean doesn’t have to change faces too many times because he is mostly the mayor of Popcorn Falls, but when he does, he steps right up and hams it up with glee. Dean knows how to keep the ball in the air, and he also knows how to keep Sam Martinez in line if anything bobbles. Half the fun is watching these two navigate a script moving at 180 mph like some insane theatrical NASCAR event. They have each other, and that makes POPCORN FALLS so beautiful to watch. You walk away loving Sam Martinez, Dean R. Dicks, and every character they have unleashed on the track.  

Director Elvin Moriarty and Assistant Director Kristen Sheils know how their theatre works, and they stage POPCORN FALLS perfectly for Theatre Suburbia. The two pare things down, use a sweater for a cat, and do all sorts of inventive things with ordinary objects, and I am convinced one of them is MacGyver on the side. Before opening night, Elvin told me that anything I didn’t like was Kristen's fault. Well, that backfired! Everything was on target, so Kristen must be as adept as Elvin in doing this gig. Tech was right on, thanks to Soraya Ahmadi backstage and Ian Collinson in the tech booth. 

Okay, do not get me wrong. POPCORN FALLS is a silly script with dad jokes galore, and at the end of the day, it is not super deep. This is not a theatrical challenge in the sense of trying to put on high art or theater of the absurd. But man, it’s very funny, very charming, and absolutely a joy to watch. And that is why THEATRE SUBURBIA is the place to witness this. Sam and Dean are here to make you laugh, and they love what they are doing as well as each other. And at the end of the day, I would see this type of show over and over and love it for being what it is. The message of the entire show is that community theater can save the world! So, thank goodness to the folks at Theatre Suburbia for reminding us of their superpower. This one is simply a great time! 

POPCORN FALLS runs at Theatre Suburbia through February 8th. You can make reservations through the Theatre's website or by following the link below. Theatre Suburbia is in a strip mall located at 5201 Mitchelldale. Parking is completely free and easily accessible.   

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