Review of Mythical Proportions at Theater Wit

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Mythical Proportions. It was written and performed by Nora Dunn. What basically she did is that she told her own story, but she also told stories of people that she knew and characters that she made up. She made a lot of jokes that I really liked and thought were funny, but some of the stories really touched me, like one about a woman who had lost her first child, and one of them was downright scary. I think this play is complicated in a good way; you have lots of things to think about after the show. It made me very interested in the show, and I thought she did a good job keeping people interested through the entire show. I knew it was going to be just talking, and sometimes, for a kid, just talking can be boring, but in this case it was a really fun experience!

There was a story about a woman who was an agent to a bunch of Hollywood stars. But the thing is she didn't just agent them that way that agents do. She basically had a romantic relationship with every single one that she agented! All of the name changes were very strange. Like Rock Hudson was named Warren Beatty (but of course that's just another Hollywood star). And at the end, she said she made out with Claude Monet! How could she have done that! If she was like in her 20s and she was making out with an 80 year old...I just don't know why she'd want to make out with an 80 year old. I think Nora Dunn just wanted you to think that the agent was a funny and ridiculous person.

There was this part where she was pretending to be her doll that she had when she was a kid. She liked to write poetry is what she said. I thought that that was really great because I like when people write poetry, but the thing is this wasn't beautiful, heartbreaking poetry. It was mocking poetry. It wouldn't actually be nice in real life, but it is funny to think about. When she wrote her poetry, she always said, "Yeah, I got in trouble for that too!" which I thought was really funny. There was another funny part when she went to her friend's house and she watched this show she shouldn't be watching because it was about people in jail. And she said, "And each of them made little crafts. Like one of them made a weapon." It was kind of like a little kid's perspective of that kind of show.

I thought it was kind of sad when she told the story of her Dad being an actor. But the thing was, it is not sad to be an actor. It was because one of the actors that her mom was friends with committed suicide. And he had left his makeup kit there. And sometimes she would go in there and look at all the things that were in the makeup kit. It told me that her life was sometimes good, but sometimes it could be very sad. It told me that acting is sometimes a good idea, like she is an actress and she seems like she is a funny person, and my dad is an actor and he is a really nice guy. But the thing is, some actors do go wrong.

There was a kind of a scary one about a British woman who went to America and she met two people and she got angry at them and it doesn't end well. You feel at first that this is an innocent girl who just wants to go to America. I think that Nora Dunn was trying to tell you a story that would creep you out and it really worked. It really did creep me out. This story, even though it is not very realistic, you feel like it could happen when you are hearing it. She told it kind of like a regular story, but it wasn't a regular story, and that made it creepier because the character seems to not care about it.

People who would like this show are people who like funny agents, murder stories, and people in jail making crafts. People should go see this show because it is funny, sad, and scary. It makes you feel lots of different emotions.

Photos: Chuck Osgood