{"id":401554,"date":"2025-11-24T15:18:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/401554\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T15:18:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T15:18:19","slug":"beautiful-princess-disorder-will-knock-your-tiara-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/401554\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful Princess Disorder Will Knock Your Tiara Off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here it is the day after Kathy Ng\u2019s World Premiere of Beautiful Princess Disorder<\/strong> at Catastrophic Theatre and the vertigo from the mood swings is still hanging around. Beautiful Princess Disorder might not be in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but maybe it should be. Or maybe you will just know it when you see it after this will-never-get-out-of-your-head production.<\/p>\n

First of all, get used to \u201cheaven\u201d having the required fluffy and puffy cloud coverage, but also a 1971 dilapidated once super deluxe station wagon sitting in the parking lot where entrants to heaven await being processed. \u201cGod is procrastinating His judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

And who is waiting in this parking lot? Triangle Person (A mind-blowingly funny but also serious as a heart attack actress T Lavois Thiebaud), Mother Theresa (Amy Bruce, proving that only the best actresses can pull off showing the Most Famous Nun in the World at her worst), and infamous killer whale Tilikum, also known as Tilly (a vivacious Kyle Sturdivant, who is so meow-meow funny one minute, and then the next is answering interrogation questions to get into heaven that will punch you in the gut). This is quite the trio of actors, and they make the avante-garde-ing that Catastrophic is known for look easy\u2014but of course it\u2019s not, and that kind of risky business never is.<\/p>\n

Triangle Person DEMANDS that she is a beautiful princess, and Disney is one of her many homes. But she\u2019s not in Disney Land, she is in the Heaven Can Wait Parking lot, breaking the 4th Wall with a sledgehammer, demanding the audience coach her as a competitive swimmer for external success and saccharine photos of a fabulous elite-swimmer-coach relationship. It\u2019s the kind of pie-in-the-sky delusion on demand that Triangle Person welcome us to, literally: \u201cWelcome to the Sky.\u201d And what is the sky? No borders, and one anticlimax after another. This surreal psychological and physical landscape is bonkers: a killer whale has a better chance than Mother Theresa of getting into heaven! But is that really so different than anything else in the world? Hmmm.<\/p>\n

Did I mention that Triangle Person has a big yellow triangle for a head while in a \u201cno-nonsense\u201d swimsuit ready for intense competition and external validation sown through obsessive hard work to model after the loved\/hated freak of nature Michael Phelps? You might be thinking the yellow triangle is an ironic yield sign for the Beautiful Princess Disorder in which there is no filter and no yielding, because that would get in the way of some serious Bi-Polar or Borderline Personality Disorderly conduct. Or you might just think \u201cConstant Triangulation to up the drama quotient, as in on stage, right now?\u201d Don\u2019t stress too much about it\u2014you are going to try to allegorize, but better just to float on the water of the show and hope that you are not in a pool near Tilly.<\/p>\n

Expertly directed by Founding Artistic Director Jason Nodler, this production had extensive consultations and deep revisions with the playwright, Kathy Ng, who was present for an illuminating talk-back after Sunday\u2019s performance. In the play, Ng appears in a filmed backdrop of her discussing herself in a way that illuminates the autobiographical elements in the play.<\/p>\n

Maybe this is Theatre of the Absurd, but who cares what you call it? The world is a little too much with us, reality showing through too much for the dodge of that label. Mother Theresa is a hot mess of insecurity and not-enough-ness paired with cruelty and a big empathy deficit. You might think she was the best nun in the world, but Christopher Hitchens\u2019 book expose of her, The Missionary Position, is tossed around and there\u2019s no unringing that bell. Your formerly favorite nun is a sketchy fraud who says she is pro-life, but she won\u2019t even entertain Triangle Person\u2019s pleas for her to care about all the \u201cThought Babies\u201d that are killed. If a nun won\u2019t care about your aborted dreams, who will?<\/p>\n

In Ng\u2019s liminal waiting room, God is right next door to heaven, but he never visits. He wants people to do Netflix specials that are more to his liking. But what has replaced God in this play? Well, the internet and podcasts\u2014they provide the answers to everything, right? One of the best scenes is when Triangle Person tries to reach the pinnacle of her head mentioning all sorts of triangles of improvement that we have shoved into our own triangle heads, like that ridiculous food pyramid and even Maslow\u2019s Hierarchy of Needs, which is such a struggle, impossible really, to reach.<\/p>\n

\"\"Amy Bruce as Mother Teresa and Kyle Sturdivant as Tilikum Credit: Anthony Rathbun<\/p>\n

Matt Fries\u2019 set design, the spot-on costumes by Macy Lyne, the pendulum of soft and harsh lighting by Roma Flowers, and the music, video and sound design by James Templeton all dovetail to create a theatrical experience that keeps you engaged and in a state of constant interpretive schizophrenia, but in a good way.<\/p>\n

Triangle Person is a Beautiful Princess but has \u201cnever been treated like one.\u201d Maybe she is a petulant brat, maybe she has one of the types of bipolar disorder, or maybe it is a just a big case of \u201cWelcome to the Sky,\u201d where there are no borders, but plenty of room for borderline personality disorder. But who doesn\u2019t have THAT in this play, where a killer whale is shamed for killing, even though he \u201cloves\u201d his victims? They just trigger major splitting as they fail to give the external validation that keeps the performing animal doing their bidding. You wouldn\u2019t think that Sturdivant\u2019s interrogation answers in a full Orca costume would move you so much, but they do. Plus, the bonus that this play probably dramatizes BPD better than any college course or podcast ever will.<\/p>\n

Trigger warnings: there is lots of sexual innuendo, hilarious physical demands on the actors, obsessions with sushi and Californication, compulsory blasphemy, accusations against the audience by Triangle Person that make you feel like maybe you are guilty. But mainly the trigger warning is for the revelation that it is a Never Enough World\u2014two medical miracles won\u2019t get you into heaven, you need to look down and eat dirt all the time, you have to swim and swim and swim and never stop unless you think you are about to have a heart attack. You might not know that from the internet and all.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s The Catastrophic Theatre being The Catastrophic Theatre, just like a killer whale has to be a killer whale. You know: that animal we take our kids to see in case they might want to be a marine biologist.<\/p>\n

Beautiful Princess Disorder continues through December 13 \u00a0at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays at the Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH), 3400 Main. Special Monday Night performance on December 1 at 7:30pm.\u00a0\u00a0This production is recommended for audiences 12 and older, but this reviewer recommends older. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit \u00a0\u00a0matchouston.org<\/a>. Pay What You Can.<\/p>\n

This article appears in Jan 1 \u2013 Dec 31, 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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