FESTIVAL OF INDEPENDENT THEATRES 2006

Sunny & Eddie Sitting in a Tree by Matt Lyle - WORLD PREMIERE

Director...	Jessica D. Turner
Asst. Director...	Marie Charlson
Stage Manager...	Ben Bryant
Sound...	Jessica D. Turner
Costumes...	Joyous Israel
Props/Set...	Kim Lyle
Featuring...
Mary Lang Fournier
Kim Lyle
Matt Lyle
Jeremy Whiteker
Brian Witkowicz
Jennifer Youle

• Dallas Morning News Review
• Dallas Observer Review
• Dallas Morning News Follow-Up Feature

Sunny' opening first-rate for writer and actor Lyle

July 17, 2006 By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News

Hats off, ladies and gentlemen! A genius!

Matt Lyle has been writing material for Bootstraps Comedy Theater for several years now. His stuff has been intermittently interesting, often funny but a bit clumsy. But the new play he premiered at the Festival of Independent Theatres on Saturday, Sunny & Eddie Sitting in a Tree , is a one-hour comic masterpiece.

Think of Mr. Lyle as Woody Allen for Generation Y.

He not only wrote the script, he stars as Eddie. The character bears a curious resemblance to Mr. Lyle, since he's a young writer of comedy. The character is also as neurotic as any of Mr. Allen's. In fact, Eddie meets a fascinating but kooky girl, Sunny, while they're both waiting in their therapist's office.

Sunny & Eddie Sitting in a Tree tells the story of the ensuing relationship most cleverly. Mr. Lyle fearlessly uses every trick in the book to advance his tale through laughter. An audience favorite is the scene in which Sunny's mysterious one-eyed boyfriend appears as a cyclops, mauling Eddie with his great paws. (It's actually a play within the play, since it's supposed to be a sketch that Eddie wrote.)

The talented stock company that Bootstraps has been assembling executes all this with gleeful precision, but the real star is Mr. Lyle himself.

He's every bit as helpless and funny as the early Mr. Allen, but Woody was never this charming or lovable. Maybe some of the credit for this breakthrough for Bootstraps and Mr. Lyle should go to director Jessica D. Turner. Ms. Turner has become one of Dallas' notable actors recently, but who knew she could direct like this?

The Fragile Fourth Wall

July 20, 2006 ANDREA GRIMES/Dallas Observer

There is at least one clear winner among the eight plays in FIT rotation: Sunny and Eddie Sitting in a Tree, an inspiring romantic comedy by local playwright Matt Lyle that's performed by the thoroughly funny Bootstraps Comedy Theater company. The premise, two people falling in love at their therapist's office, has the potential to become trite but escapes that fate through painfully human dialogue, stories too embarrassing to be taken from anything but real life and a genuine appreciation for silliness that's refreshing.

Taking obvious but carefully controlled cues from Woody Allen and Cameron Crowe, Sunny and Eddie feels as much like a film as a play. It's got all the overt physical outrageousness of live theater--the clown bit is particularly entertaining, and the part with the 8-foot Cyclops just wouldn't be nearly as funny on the screen--but nervous eye movement, lip-biting and finger-drumming say just as much at key moments.

[Jennifer Youle]'s Sunny starts out thoroughly overacted with only a damn funny script to make her endearing, but she finds her groove near the middle of the play and becomes much more likable. The neurotic Eddie, immediately enamored of Sunny, is lovingly played by the show's writer, Matt Lyle. The small supporting cast, given roles ranging from Bible-beating online daters to gay dads, provide just the right amount of texture.

The most remarkable aspect of Sunny and Eddie, however, is the recognition of how powerful the right music can be at the right time. Every scene change is punctuated by the soundtrack of Sunny and Eddie's twentysomething generation. Audience members actually started singing along with the Polyphonic Spree, and no song could better capture Sunny and Eddie's awkward offstage love scene than Bright Eyes' "Take It Easy (Love Nothing)." Where other FIT plays forget their audience, Sunny and Eddie knows them intimately, and the details are filled in effortlessly. The whole thing comes off feeling--gasp--practically professional.

A breakthrough script for a Bootstraps actor

July 24, 2006 LAWSON TAITTE/Dallas Morning News

Matt Lyle has written several previous scripts for his Bootstraps Comedy Theater, but they didn't prepare us for the new one that's now being performed at the Bath House Cultural Center. It's a smash.

Mr. Lyle wrote Sunny & Eddie Sitting in a Tree in three weeks last November. After a staged reading of a full-length version – with actor Brian Gonzales taking all the men's roles so that the Bootstraps regulars could see the play from the outside – Mr. Lyle rewrote and whittled the script down to a one-act and decided to cast himself in the lead for a production at the Festival of Independent Theatres.

It's a breakthrough for the 28-year-old, both as a writer and as an actor. So now we have a third name to put alongside Lee Trull and Steven Walters, talented playwrights and actors in their mid-20s who previously had received more attention than Mr. Lyle.

The style of Sunny & Eddie, "romantic comedy, boy meets girl, has always been my favorite in the movies," Mr. Lyle says. "When I was 15, I saw Annie Hall for the first time. That set me on my way and made me say, 'I want to do that.' "

Sunny & Eddie Sitting in a Tree is full of obvious hommages to Woody Allen. But Mr. Lyle also drew inspiration from a play called Toothpaste & Cigars that he performed last year for Act I Productions.

"It was similar in that the characters were such normal people, telling each other such normal stories. I guess it rang so true for me, being in the demographic, right in the age group," Mr. Lyle says. "Just the way the people actually talk to each other, the embarrassing things you tell each other."

Although the characters are superficially normal enough, they're also obviously screwed up. The hero and heroine (played by Jennifer Youle) strike up a conversation when they show up for conflicting appointments with their mutual therapist.

"What I wanted to do was do the traditional boy-goes-after-the-girl type play, but with the twist: Does he want to keep her when he realizes her problems?" the writer explains.

Like his creator, Eddie writes comedy sketches for a living. (Mr. Lyle also works days for Dallas Children's Theater.) One of the show's highlights is an uproarious sketch-within-the-play. Mr. Lyle says he had to cut two more, one about a Russian peasant, the other about a love affair with the 53rd wife of a sultan. The full-length version also had additional characters, including a mute neighbor who is Eddie's confidant.

With any luck, Bootstraps will get around to producing the longer Sunny & Eddie Sitting in a Tree – and it will run forever.