Review: DIDO OF IDAHO at Echo Theater Company

DIDO OF IDAHO is a dark comedy by Abby Rosebrock that tackles intense themes of grief, trauma, and obsession. Deftly directed by Abigail Deser, the show is powerful, pointed, and poignant with solid performances and clever staging.

Nora (Alana Dietze) is a needy, insecure, alcoholic baroque musicologist having an affair with a married English professor and aspiring poet, Michael (Joby Earle), whose wife, Crystal’s (Nicole DuPort), mother is dying. Nora’s own estranged mother, Julie (Julie Dretzin), is a Christian who disapproves of her daughter’s life choices, but is having an affair with her roommate, Ethel (Elissa Middleton).

It sounds like a soap opera, but Rosebrock’s dramedy has more on its mind than simple melodrama. Her setup is complex and her characters are layered: Nora and Michael, despite having their collegiate bona fides, still read as pseudointellectuals, hipsters who would bristle at the idea that they are, indeed, hipsters. Julie is a morass of contrasts, and Crystal is neurotic in countless ways.

Each of the female roles is rich and each actor is given much to work with, which makes Earle’s underwritten Michael stand out a bit. He’s a capable performer; he just isn’t given much to work with. The show would be stronger if the character of Michael had been excised entirely, giving the whole thing to the women because they are more fully drawn and realized.

To wit, Nora is a disaster of a human, which can sometimes be endearing in storytelling. With Nora, it’s not. She jumps from frying pan into fire and then she pours gasoline on it and then sets off a nuclear explosion. It’s messy and hypnotic to watch. Dietze gives an ego-less performance that could use a few more shadings to ground her character in her

extremes. DuPort steals the show as Type-A, ex-pageant queen Crystal. She’s bright, she’s funny, she’s colorful, she’s terrifying in her good-natured, high-strung mania. Every enunciation and gesture, her cadence of speech, are all spectacular, leading to some of the best of the uproarious moments.

Deser uses the small-ish space well, including the incorporation of believable fight choreography by Ahmed Best. The lighting design by Xinyuan Li is elegant, made up of varying types of lamps suspended from the ceiling. The scenic design by Amanda Knehans is centered and operational, and, because this is theater in the round, it needs to be visible from all angles at all times, no small feat. The problem is that it’s difficult to see, because the seating is all on the same level, so you can’t view it all unless you’re in the front row. There were significant swathes and critical parts of scenes that I had to infer because they simply weren’t visible.

That said, if you can get front-row seats, this is a blistering and hysterical look at trauma, memory, and regret. Another in a long-running series of knockouts from the Echo Theater Company.

Photos by Makela Yepez Photography

DIDO OF IDAHO is performed at the Atwater Village Theater, 3269 Casitas Avenue, through August 26. Tickets are available at EchoTheaterCompany.com or by calling (747) 350-8066.

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