I've Never Been So Happy (review)

The intermission of Austin-based Rude Mechanicals' latest production I've Never Been So Happy refreshingly departed from tradition. Instead of the typical quick break, the audience ventured outside the theatre to participate in a Western-themed "transmedia shindig" that featured interactive, carnival-inspired amusements. At the "Messin' with Texas" station, audience members threw wet pieces of paper at a giant map of the state; at "Land Grab," they decided whether to develop parcels of land for profit or for the common good; and at the "Clothes Horse" station, people picked out Western attire to wear for the duration of the show, transforming themselves into part of the performance. During this playful intermission, Rude Mechs presented attractions that seemed at first familiar, but contained unexpected twists that quickly made the familiar strange. The company explored this theme more fully, and to thought-provoking effect, in the production itself.

Meg Sullivan (Annabellee) in I've Never Been So Happy (Photo: Bret Brookshire.)

Although Rude Mechs have attracted national attention before, most recently with The Method Gun (2008), I've Never Been So Happy represented a new level of creative collaboration and innovation for the experimental theatre collective. I've Never Been So Happy, which the company called a "western musical extravaganza," exuberantly explored the tension between nostalgia for an imagined past and dreams of a different kind of future. Stylistically, the company both deployed and subverted common elements of musical theatre, a choice that served to reinforce thematic tensions between old and new. Ultimately, the show argued that to create new models of being in the world, we must simultaneously break free from the chains of nostalgia and reject utopian visions of the future. The show's message to dig deeply into the present and create our own mythologies has the potential to resonate deeply with an American public surrounded by a national political climate of gridlock and frustration.

The story revolved around Annabellee (Meg Sullivan), a young woman who wants to break free from her controlling father Brutus (Lowell Bartholomee). Brutus and Annabellee perform in a self-titled "Country and Western Family Comedy Variety Hour," and Brutus will not let his daughter leave to see the world until she gets married. The two decide to pit their dachshunds, Sigmunda (Jenny Larson) and Sigfried (Paul Soileau), against each other in a race to determine the rights to the land. Meanwhile, Julie (Cami Alys), a member of a "wymn's" commune, reluctantly releases her son Jeremy (E. Jason Liebrecht) into the wild, because he has turned 18 and the commune does not allow men. Julie ropes Jeremy to a mountain lion to teach him how to be tough, but eventually he breaks free and meets Annabellee. An unconventional love story ensues.

The characters of Brutus and Julie best embodied the show's key tension between old and new through their competing visions of the West. Brutus, who wants to build a theme park to recreate the West of yesteryear, reflected tradition and capitalism, while Julie, a lesbian who wants to live free and have her voice heard, suggested an idealized vision of a future that breaks ties with a patriarchal past. Brutus and Julie battled it out in the energetic song "Western Way of Livin'," but in the end, Annabellee and Jeremy decided to create something entirely new on the fought-over land—a mountain lion preserve. They offered a new vision of life in the West, one that celebrates wildness and creates a liminal (arguably queer) space in-between the paradigms symbolized by their parents. It was this kind of new space (which Annabellee refers to as "the weird part") where the possibilities for change truly lie. The show's ending suggested that one must acknowledge the past and respect visions of the future, but ultimately must strive to create possibility and change in the present...