Photography by Tyler Lucas
—Jan Farrington
It’s a short season, the run-up to Halloween, but Sundown Collaborative Theatre (based in Denton) has side-stepped both the campy and comic strains of the usual spooky-season theater for something more considered. It will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but for many of us attuned to the centuries of collective effort put into “keeping women down” (a middle-of-the-road term neither casual nor outraged), Sundown’s Witches might be for you (and proved so for me) a worthwhile sit-down inside the head spaces of some intelligent and creative women.
This is a “devised” piece thought through and put together by a collective of local actors attached to the company—and filled with the virtues and problems of that method of theater-making. Time and repetitions needed some editing, and though a visually intriguing filmed segment added universality to the themes on stage, it was an abrupt shift for the audience to make it there and back again to the play without a bit of confusion.
Still and all…director Julia Bodiford and others involved have done their reading and research on the topic of witches, tracing, as Bodiford notes, “how fear, control, judgment, and survival echo across time.” How women collected power (whether or not we call it witchcraft) and and came together, hiding within gentle, healing, useful occupations —plants, medicinal healing, midwifery, book knowledge and science, music and dance.
They are together, but finding strength in one another, and the various interactions of the “woods” women and the newly arrived wife build a warmth and supportiveness she hasn’t experienced at home. Bodiford adds a solemn note at the end of her commentary in the program: “When the hunted find one another, they may just remember they have teeth.” The wife’s husband brings a group of men home from work, and his eager taking on of their hard, disrespectful behavior breaks his wife. These “men-centric” scenes aren’t meant to blend ideas, but to help us see centuries of civilization discounting women, leaving them in the servant background, .
During the two-act piece I was absorbing everything onstage more than studying the structure of the show—but afterwards, it became clear that we had experienced a backward-rolling swath of human history. From the dinner table of a suburban modern couple, twisting and turning through increasingly oppressive times and situations for women…and all the way back to a Salem-like moment of the law about to do its worst. Between that, a young and troubled wife runs literally “into the woods” seeking…safety, protection, a different life, simply being “away”?
Her journey interconnects with the women she meets, and eventually again with her husband, who himself is transformed in ways we perhaps expected. He too is on a journey, but the results deliver more englightenment and purpose to his wife than to him.
The “devised” language of Witches is carried in chant, song, poetry, and conversation, and is (as all devised work must be) a collage of different thoughts and voices. But in the end, the accumulation adds up to something. I don’t imagine many people will drive home without continuing to turn the ideas of the show over, around, and through their thoughts—and perhaps also in conversations with people they brought along. Sundown’s “Collaborative” streak is showing with this one! (See cast & creatives below.)
WHEN: October 23-November 1, 2026 (Fri-thru-Sun)
WHERE: Theatre Denton Annex, Golden Triangle Mall, Denton TX (follow mall signs)
WEB: sundowncollaborative.org
WRITERS: Julia Bodiford, Courtney Dobelbower, Mars Phillips, Lindsey Hall, Lee Howard, Amanda Fae Landry, Jessica Barnes, Beth Tristan, Brandy Townsend, Gabrielle Perkins, Donnie McHenry, Jacob Drum, Carrissa Davis, and Lauren Juckniewitz.
DIRECTOR, Julia Bodiford; ASST DIRECTOR, Courtney Dobelbower; STAGE MGR: Mars Phillips; PRODUCING MEMBER, Lauren Juckniewitz.
CAST: Lindsey Hall, Lee Howard, Amanda Fae Landry, Jessica Barnes, Betti Tristan, Brandy Townsend, Gabrielle Perkins, Donnie McHenry. FILM DIRECTION: Julia Bodiford, Betti Tristan, Tyler Lucas (also camera work). FILM CAST: Madison Claire Fountain, Lauren Juckniewitz, Carrissa Davis, Jacob Drum, Mars Phillips. (See PROGRAM for detailed info on the tech team and “backstage” folks as well: https://sundowntheatre.org/program )
