Art Capsule Reviews

Collect All Four How about if we collect two instead? Julie Farstad uses stark imagery to convey a nightmarish reality, placing painted toy baby dolls in compromising positions; the slightly grotesque, shiny baby fat in her paintings is indelible. In “Bad Bad Girls,” one doll lifts the dress of the other for a spanking against an austere, glowing-red background. In “Stunt Girl’s Sweet Reward,” the girl doll has fallen down a model clay staircase as clay butterflies flit about and away from her in an empty, green world. Allie Rex’s untitled works are a series of complex, delicate paper sculptures. One captures vague memories of a childhood visit to a theme park where boys and girls ride a twirling swing set; another uses colored pencils to create a paper version of a fireworks display. Linnea Spransy’s cold, diagrammatic illustrations meander, though, and Kariann Fuqua’s obtuse and almost impressionistic renderings of urban locales look straight out of Office Art, circa 1981. Through July 29 at the Byron C. Cohen Gallery for Contemporary Art, 2020 Baltimore, 816-421-5665. (R.T.B.)

Empty Thoughts, Lame Excuses, and Decorative Lies Ryan Humphrey’s first solo museum exhibition consists of four pieces: “Vantasy,” the driver’s side of a tricked-out, 1971 C-10 Chevrolet van; “Honky Spaceship,” a battery-powered installation panel that pumps out the beats of Public Enemy and Run DMC; “Rear Window,” the tail section of a Ferrari mounted on plywood; and “Velocity of Transparent Aspiration,” a BMW 7-Series hood painted in the distinctive slash pattern of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar. The artist has taken the inherently gritty, masculine cultures of guitar rock, hip-hop and auto customization and melded them with the postmodern concept of ready-mades, a movement that playfully criticizes what was considered art by objectifying average items. But the products that result aren’t average. And we suspect that Humphrey is trying to pay homage to that on some level, but by bringing it into a pristine white gallery, he looks self-indulgent at best and pretentious at worst. We wonder if the show might succeed in a space that’s as coarse as the work. That the exhibition is at the Kemper doesn’t “shake up our connotations of class,” as the accompanying essay promises; instead, it robs these worlds of their sex, one of their most fundamental dimensions. Through July 2 at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick, 816-753-5784. (A.F.)

Family Pack: Artists Exploring Parenthood In her exploration of parenthood, Betsey Schneider apparently discovered that her children are specimens to be examined through a camera lens like bacteria under a microscope. “Seven” is 350 images of what we assume is her 7-year-old daughter in basically the same pose at various stages of undress. (Though this isn’t the focal point of the piece, we can’t help but notice that the girl is completely disrobed in 25 of the snapshots.) Suzette Bross gives us a more humorous depiction of parenthood by photographing her child in-utero. The belly that eclipses her face in “Self-Portrait (obstructed),” which peeks out from the frame of another picture and duels with the toothbrush in still another, could be the character in a low-budget horror film titled The Belly. In “Day Before Daphne — 1 thru 4,” Bross hits a more somber note, digitally engraving pictures of her hand-swaddled belly into four heavy crystals. Through July 29 at Society for Contemporary Photography, 816-471-2115. (A.E.F.)

Group Show Even though it’s exquisitely presented, the work at Grothaus and Pearl Gallery could be propped haphazardly against the walls and still be successful. Matthew Krawcheck’s oil paintings represent a hobbitlike quest through the artist’s imagination — what he seeks isn’t clear, but the journey is adorned with colorful East Indian motifs and a lot of self-referential humor that provoke repeated efforts to decode his meaning. (The titles of his paintings are long-winded, and Krawcheck doesn’t break character in his artist’s statement.) Shane Brown frames images of middle America that are devoid of human figures but rife with traces of their presence; in “Superior, Nebraska,” an abandoned mechanical horse has a well-worn saddle, and a cigarette carton lies nearby. Sculptor John Northington embeds steel in concrete like hieroglyphics and uses glass to create something similar to amethyst crystals. Through June 25 at the Grothaus and Pearl Gallery of the Leedy-Volkous Art Center, 2012 Baltimore, 816-471-1015. (A.E.F.)

Marcie Miller Gross: Density In seven site-specific pieces at the Paragraph, Marcie Miller Gross continues the theme of repeated shapes, lines and textures evident in her Foldoverfold exhibit at the Kemper a few months back. It’s more benign, though — there’s nothing immediately compelling about the seven felt-and-wood works on display. “Cream (Section) #1” hangs like a beige flag representing an imaginary Martha Stewart nation, all soft, warm and fuzzy. “Cream (Vertical)” and “Cream (Horizontal) #2” are mild and passive — they nearly disappear on the gallery wall. More interesting is “Untitled #1,” where the perfectly horizontal shape appears like a primitive piece of meat (made of industrial felt), with beautiful bass wood as the bone. “Untitled #2” continues the motif, altering the shape only slightly for a bump in the center. “Cream (Horizontal) #2” and “Cream (Horizontal) #1” are essentially flip-flopped versions of each other, with a barely discernable difference in the width of their felt strips. Gross works in an intentionally narrow landscape that sometimes doesn’t leave room for the viewer. Through July 8 at the Paragraph, 23 E. 12th St., 816-221-5115. (R.T.B.)

Wounds and Romances Rob Tapley has been betrayed by his heart, and beautiful women have ripped it out and stomped on it. He might have known some of them intimately; others, he only fantasized about from afar. His most recent paintings tell us as much, recalling ’60s-era Playboy with their bright and colorful paint drops and feelings of overwhelming insecurity. A few of the titles read like romance-novel rejects: “Sugar-coated Love,” “Player,” “Misplaced Desire.” Recurring images of ideal, naked women fill the frames, and choruses of tiny ghoul heads predict doom. In “Many Men,” a nude woman with pink, candylike nipples lies prostrate on a soft, frilly pillow. The fantasy is undercut by a cursive observation in the background: “Many men filled her holes … never really filled her soul.” Most humorous and playfully graphic is “Funbags,” which cuts to the sexual chase: a close-up of two big boobs. Through June 30 at the Opie Gallery, 2012 Baltimore, 816-474-1919. (R.T.B.)

Bus Stop The Barn Players kick off an ambitious summer season (coming soon: Schoolhouse Rock and Urinetown) with a revival of William Inge’s half-forgotten ’50s classic about troubled souls waiting out a blizzard in a Kansas diner. Inge’s drama has its dark corners, but it’ll be nice to remember what it was like when Kansas had real greasy spoons instead of Hardee’s. Through June 11 at the Barn Players, 6219 Martway, Mission, 913-432-9100.

Dearly Departed Wringing as much fun as it can from a funeral, David Bottrell and Jessie Jones’ end-of-life comedy centers on a family of Southern types — spinster Delightful, a ne’er-do-well brother, and others — desperate to make sense of life and one another in the days after a patriarch’s death. The play’s been packing them in for years now; it’s an early example of the laugh-at-the-rubes-but-learn-from-their-simple-decency genre. Through June 10 at City Theatre of Independence, 201 N. Dogion, 816-325-7367.

The King and I Kicking off the same week as hurricane season, and just as likely to benefit from global warming, the Annual Reign of Summer Musicals is upon us. This time, Johnson County’s Theatre in the Park gives us the singing-in-Siam classic — a happier remaking-the-East-in-our-image story than we can imagine today. If last year’s season is any guide, it might be a groaner (see Singin’ in the Rain), or it might kick the pros at Starlight to the curb (see West Side Story). Either way, it’s cheap. Through June 11 at Shawnee Mission Park, 17501 Midland Dr. in Shawnee, 913-312-8841.

Mitch Albom’s Duck Hunter Shoots Angel Godawful but not uninteresting, Duck Hunter spends half its time reminding us that simple people see truths that book-learning types can’t, all the while exploiting Southern stereotypes that wouldn’t fly on Hee Haw. Sean Grennan is flat and irritable as a tabloid reporter dispatched to an Alabama swamp to investigate two idjit duck hunters’ claim that they bagged an angel. Scott Cordes and Joseph Albright earn honest laughs as the hunters, but not enough to get this turkey aloft. Through June 11 at the American Heartland Theatre, 2450 Grand, 816-842-9999. (Reviewed in our May 25 issue.)

Proposals Late-period Neil Simon lets up on the laughs and instead makes salvos toward real feeling — but nothing so raw it might spoil your New Theatre dinner. Proposals — a nostalgia-steeped take on summer in the Poconos of the 1950s — stands out from other wistful Simon plays in its inclusion of an honest-to-God black character, Clemma, who serves as maid for Simon’s quipping neurotics and as narrator for the rest of us. Yes, we sometimes joke about the threadbare celebs the New Theatre ships in for its shows, but if they keep getting folks like Jeffersons star Marla Gibbs, who stars as Clemma, we’ll happily shut the hell up. Through June 18 at New Theatre Restaurant, 9229 Foster in Overland Park, 913-649-7469.

Side by Side by Sondheim For this cabaret-style tribute to the only living genius of musical theater, J. Kent Barnhart and his decked-out Quality Hill Playhouse singers double their night-music capacity by inviting second pianist Molly Jessup, who hosted QHP’s fine Carole King tribute awhile back. Unlike many QHP shows, this revue is 30 years old — meaning it’s a proven winner, yes, but also that there’s more Company (yuck) than Assassins (yay!). Feel all fancy through July 2 at Quality Hill Playhouse, 303 W. 10th St, 816-421-1700.

Talley’s Folly As a piece of writing, Lanford Wilson’s courtship drama is exquisite. Set in 1944, it opens with a suitor’s monologue in which the young man promises to woo the daughter of “a family that is not at peace but in grave danger of prosperity” in exactly 97 minutes — the length of this two-character dance. The Kansas City Actors Theatre’s treatment of Wilson’s play — the Pulitzer Prize-winning first entry in his trilogy of dramas set in Lebanon, Missouri — should be just as fine. It’s presented throughout the summer in “rotating repertory,” meaning that, once the trilogy’s up and running, the shows will be staged on alternating nights. Through Sept. 2 at Union Station’s City Stage, 18 W. Pershing, 816-235-6222.

Vote (Twice) for Murder More murder-as-an-appetizer interactive theater from the Mystery Train, the inventive local company that spices its comic mysteries with Kansas City history. In this case, it’s election time in the Prohibition era, with diners taking the part of passengers on a KC-bound train. As always, a corpse turns up, and everyone (including you, your date and your grandmother) is a suspect. The homegrown scripts tend to twist wittily, and audience contributions are often hilarious. And we’ve never guessed the killer. Thursdays through Saturdays through June 10 at the Hereford House Restaurant, 2 E. 20th St., 816-813-9654.