Think back to the myriad of ugly sweaters and useless tchotchkes you’ve received as gifts over the years. We’ll bet most of them have probably ended up on thrift store shelves by now. But for playwright Kara Lee Corthron, the “creepy, weird, always-smiling” Carol Channing dummy that her niece once received for Christmas has been immortalized as the inspiration for her new play, Holly Down in Heaven, now playing through October 20 at Forum Theatre in Silver Spring.
“I became intrigued with the idea of… seeing this crazy puppet in a play, but then seeing a stage full of dolls,” Corthron told K Street Magazine at a press night preview on Saturday. “I… wondered: what kind of world would that be? Then I thought: who might inhabit this world?”
The result: a Juno meets Toy Story tale about Holly, a born-again Christian teen who banishes herself to the basement of her family home as penance for pregnancy. There, she rules her roost of (sassy) talking dolls with stunning self-importance; until her new tutor, Mia—a grad student whose own mangled history with men and relationships erupts in riotous comic relief on more than one occasion—challenges Holly to choose between the safety of her make-believe world, or the responsibilities of adulthood.
With killer cast performances, grounding pop culture references (you’ll hear Kelis’ “Milkshake”), not to mention the intimate setting of the Round House Theatre venue, this stage full of dolls truly comes alive to deliver a bizarre yet believable coming-of-age story.
*Photos credit Ryan Maxwell
