Way back before kids, we attended a lot of theatrical plays here in Dallas. Some were at the Dallas Theater Center, which is the major playhouse in town. Others were at the Pegasus Theatre, which was a much smaller theater in Deep Ellum that performed only comedies.
We got involved with Pegasus because of our friend Mark (different Mark than the person in my space stories). I’m not exactly sure how he got involved, but he ended up doing a lot of volunteer work there and we ended up with a few years of season tickets.
For us, the most notable of the Pegasus comedies was Kurt Kleinmann’s “black & white” series. Imagine this: you have a bumbling private detective and aspiring actor (an Inspector Clouseau kind of guy) that stumbles into various criminal situations and ends up solving them, mostly through dumb luck and a lot of help from his personal assistant. Nothing really new there. Here’s the twist. The stories take place back in the 1940′s and Kurt wanted the audience to think they were watching an old black & white movie. So, everything you see on the stage is black & white & shades of gray. Even the actors are made up with those colors. It all looks very strange.
There are a few things you notice right away. The inside of a person’s mouth and areas around their eyes are very red. Can’t put makeup on those. Also, “white” people aren’t white and “black” people aren’t black. Even a small area around a collar or sleeve where makeup was missed or has rubbed off shows a lot of color. After a while, though, you don’t really notice these things and you just start enjoying the top-notch comedy.
After a few years, Pegasus lost the lease on their building and closed. It was a very sad day. A couple of years ago, however, the black & white plays reappeared at the Eisenman Center. My kids were totally blown away by them. Yes, the black & whites are kid-friendly. Friendly, at least, to kids that are old enough to sit through a 2-3 hour play and behave themselves. I’ve heard that Pegasus is having problems again, but there’s a possibility of them taking one of the black & whites on the road. If you ever get a chance to see one, don’t pass it up!
Here’s one of the official promo pictures. By the way, the person in color in the photograph is there just for contrast; the people that look like black & white statues are the actors…
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