Communicative dissonances are often evidenced when novelists attempt to write plays, but no less so when a playwright steps out of his comfort zone. There is no denying Philip Dawkins's talent for spinning complex yarns populated by diverse and vividly etched personalities, but documentary accounts mandate different rules of discourse than fiction, just as third-person narratives demand differences in structure from real-time live-action re-enactments. Dawkins's entry in the Solo Celebration series contains the material for a good story—three or four, in fact. First we are introduced to three generations of his family—specifically, his grandmother, grandfather, aunt and four female cousins—augmented by references to husbands, fathers, stepfathers, sorority sisters and his own place in the hierarchy. The story itself recounts how these characters united in condolence after their beloved clan patriarch died suddenly and untimely of a brain aneurysm during his sports broadcast in full view of his television audience. To ease the trauma suffered by the deceased's children, a relative suggests a visit to the then-new, innovative and much-advertised amusement park called Disneyland. This in itself would make for an entertaining 90 minutes, since we warm immediately to the feisty Steel Magnolias of the Dawkins clan, but their chronicler also feels it important to provide us with a historical time line co-ordinating his kin's personal journey with national events (Kennedy's assassination, etc,), along with extensive quotes from Walt Disney's conceptual manifesto for his "magic kingdom"—data presented reverently at times, satirically, on other occasions—as well as the author's own musings on the coincidences/ironies arising thereby. Oh, and in addition to the exhaustive research necessary for reconstruction of events occurring previous to his own birth, Dawkins shoulders the task of parading the results of his industry before an audience. So many intriguing threads, coupled with the largely unigender cast of characters—particularly in a culture fond of assigning double names to daughters (e.g. "Betty Sue" "Mary Lynn") that may be amended in adult life—risks inducing vertigo in that same audience as it struggles to remember ages, birth orders, relationships and location. Dawkins strives to assist our orientation amid the welter of abrupt transitions and at least three false endings with a plentiful supply of vintage photographs and identifying voices, but ultimately, a tale more suited to the leisurely configurations of a “Ragtime”-styled novel or a cycle of interconnected plays like those of August Wilson proves too much to absorb all at once. It's kind of like going to Disneyland.
