‘The Amphibians’ @ Sundown Collaborative Theatre (Denton)
Photos by Tyler Lucas; graphics courtesy of Sundown Collaborative Theatre
—Ryan Maffei
Dan Caffrey’s The Amphibians, Sundown Collaborative Theatre’s current production at the Theatre Denton Annex inside Golden Triangle Mall, is so real it’s painful. Centered on two voluble teenage girls in Florida, the play is set fifteen years into the future. It’s a dystopia, if a kind of ordinary one, because fifteen years from our polarized present, those ice caps and bears are much closer to home. Their parents are millennials, catatonically depressed by their raw deal. But the girls, Simone (Claire Fountain) and Bryn (Julia Bodiford), are in love with life, even as they know it’ll be foreshortened.
They’re in love with each other, too, but polarized themselves – a childhood bond is threatened by Bryn’s new social ambitions and Simone’s age-old volatility. Caffrey has put two tragic ticking time bombs into one story.
The catalyst for the action is a tear in the fabric of their reality, but one which makes a weird sort of scientific sense: Simone discovers a giant, amphibious cryptid while wandering out in the woods. It lights up her go-nowhere day-to-day, gives her somewhere to channel the nurturing energy she never received from her mom, and, most important of all, is a secret she can share with Bryn, the better to keep her attention and rekindle their friendship. You can probably guess that her desire to turn this fantastic discovery into a status quo won’t survive the play’s brisk 90 minutes, though brace yourself for how brutally it gets thwarted. But for all of that 90 minutes, Simone’s excitement and the creature’s enchanting presence prove majorly contagious. And the thrill is in how the show reconciles its magic with its reality.
Let’s start with that puppet. Designed by Nathan Probst, Simone’s discovery (I hesitate to reveal its name, though it’s credited in the program as Joanna, like Skippy in The Thin Man or Moose in Frasier) is a little bit canine, a little bit feline, a little bit Komodo dragon and a little bit mythical dragon, with at least seven other species in the mix. But most of that is in its behavior, because the puppet is not exactly realistic. Smears of fur on top and silver foil on the bottom frame a cagelike body; lever-operated movement on her torso gives her the look of a giant toy; her slightly crossed googly eyes and labrador snout are like a Jim Henson spin on The Neverending Story’s Falkor. Were she vacated by her handlers, who carry her around the stage unconcealed, she’d be wondrous—but neither threatening nor lifelike.
The puppet’s natural whimsy is of a piece with the set, an elaborate faux-wetland designed by Austin Creswell and Missy Embry, all fake rocks and moss and mist against a cyc that shifts between entrancingly vibrant pinks and greens, color tones you’ll never see in the real sky. Ames Brennan has lit the space, a repurposed movie theatre, like a master; the whole thing has the immersive yet stagey feel of a Disneyworld indoor attraction.
The two actors tasked with guiding Simone’s cryptid through this world—and finding captivating business to cover sometimes lengthy gaps between scenes—refuse to treat their ward for even a moment as if she isn’t flesh and blood. Brought to life by Lauren Juckniewitz and Ryan Davila, “Joanna” bristles with total authenticity. She wends and weaves, sniffs around and sniffles and settles into sleep, gets curious or ravenous or agitated or struck with her own unwieldy version of the zoomies.
When she floats into the audience, you greet her with the same full faith of her two human costars. And watching Juckniewitz’s and Davila’s faces is a delight; they’re channeling their creature in every cell of their bodies. As Davila largely operates the aft end, sometimes he’s endearingly focused on the mechanics of his task, a necessary blank slate. But everything on Juckniewitz’s face is exactly what the creature is thinking and feeling. Their chemistry is also remarkable—their synergy the clear product of deep discussion about their puppet’s physical and emotional life. This is straight-up, world-class character work, immeasurably aided by the secret weapon of Carrissa Davis’ sound design. And it had better be, because for all its elements of fantasy, The Amphibians is mostly a chatty, hyperreal two-hander.
And as for its two principal actors: talk about remarkable chemistry. I’ve read the wonderful script, which though written by a man somehow captures the messy, excitable rhythms and elevated anxieties of teenage girlhood perfectly—and that cuts its gut-wrenching sadness with transcendent comedy. (“[Ke$ha’s] all you ever talk about!” “She’s incredible.” “If she’s so incredible then why is she always playing state fairs?” “Cuz she’s a survivor.”)
And if this planet survives more than another decade and a half, I can’t imagine anyone finding more perfect actors to play Simone and Bryn than Fountain and Bodiford. They’ve worked together on Sundown projects before; you can sense how deep the bond runs. They’re too mutually fond not to be telepathically dialed in to each other’s rhythms and emotions.
Fountain is a force of nature, with her big, wild eyes, fetching grin, and powerful, near-alto voice. Simone is an incessant fountain (ahem) of energy, and Fountain throws herself into the character’s every mood swing with shrewd precision and fabulous aplomb—childlike excitement, savage humor, righteous rage, manic crashout. Bodiford has the mousy, bubbly demeanor of a born cheerleader, but Sundown’s most prolific director is, unsurprisingly, an intensely intelligent actor as well. Given a role of quieter business and narrower range, Bodiford programs brilliant business between every beat; her range of reactions across just a sentence or two crackles with cleverness. You see these actors crack and gas each other up as they tumble through the rapid-fire dialogue, carrying one another when the action quiets down or the spotlight shifts. And both performers are contending not just with a puppet costar but also with the burden of proof.
While Fountain has a very distinct presence, her versatile résumé has rarely called upon the raw emotional power of which she’s capable. Here, she gets to be funnier and go harder than the norm, but also gets to slow and break down, and luxuriate (painfully) in the kind of deep devastation a skillful actor can spin into gold. If her climactic monologue doesn’t break you—the audience on opening night was rippling with choked sobs—you’re either dangerously repressed or lying about crying.
And though Bodiford, who hasn’t acted in a hot minute, is often even funnier than Caffrey’s material, she’s still the straight man in this double act. But steal a glance at her as Fountain monologues: where most of the time her face is a treasure chest of active nuance, here she burns with the complexity of just listening.
The dynamic duo also pulls off a neat trick in tandem—and I’m not just talking about the grape catch, which drew deserved applause at the performance I saw. On the page, not a sentence scans false, and both actors are full-verité vulnerable at their strongest. But both are powerful presences trained in multiple performance styles too, and with an ESP-grade attunement, they mutually heighten or recede as the proceedings require. Just as much as their puppeteer costars, Fountain and Bodiford actively work to bridge the space between the candy-colored fantasia around them—and the scary reality it reflects.
It’s always hard to suss out the directorial hand, and there’s so much brilliant work on and off stage, you get the sense that Taylor Hoyt was blessed with a team she didn’t have to pull too far to get what she needed. But she deserves kudos not just for staging this dazzling piece of fanciful fatalism, but for an eccentric pre-show that smartly sets it up.
Playwright Caffrey is a musician, and the play has astute things to say about the punk that didn’t save our world and the pop that still might (but probably won’t). Hoyt’s program mostly intersperses harrowing lectures about climate change, largely from young people, with pop hits you could link thematically to our planet’s plight if you thought about it. The effect is disorienting, amusing, dispiriting and rousing at once. It inventively sets the multileveled tone, and reminds you right off what Caffrey wants to say: though wonders may distract us, that wave is coming for all of us.
WHEN: June 27-29, July 4-6, 2025
WHERE: Theatre Denton Annex, inside Golden Triangle Mall, Denton
WEB: sundowntheatre.org
