Dieterich Delights

Select helpings of praise for Lana Dieterich's artistry, as published in these pages.

Picnic, Austin Community College/Zachary Scott Theatre Center, 1984: "There is real power in this production, most of it coming from the secondary plot of an 'old maid' schoolteacher and her dull-witted businessman beau. Beautifully played by Lana Dieterich and Pete Calhoun, they tell us a story of eternal courtship and marriage postponed. Through them we feel the pain of a lifetime spent waiting." -- R.F.

The Artificial Jungle, Different Stages, 1989: "Lana Dieterich, playing the pivotal role of restless Roxanne Nurdinger, the bored wife with 'moider' on her mind, barrels through the play like a runaway train; no power on earth can stop her as she screams, writhes, squeals, rubs up against the furniture, kills, cleans up, covers up, and falls apart. By play's end, you can't find a piece of the scenery that hasn't got her teeth marks on it, and that's how it should be. The laughter her performance provoked was deep and satisfying." -- R.F.

Marvin's Room, Subterranean Theatre Company/Big State Productions, 1994: "Watching Lana Dieterich's Ruth wriggle in agony to the sound of a garage door going up is all the proof you need that the current co-production by Subterranean and Big State is true to the author's [absurd] comic vision. Her frantic dancing and yelps of 'Oh, Jesus!' push pity down flat and prompt only tears of laughter." -- R.F.

Celebrity Crush, Refraction Arts, 2002: "Lana Dieterich, who presents her 'Lurid Teenage Diary,' a compendium of ohhhhhhh sooooooo cute living dolls from the late 1950s, including Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Edd 'Kookie' Byrnes, Tyrone Power, and Robert Fuller, ... is a scream, dressed in physician's gear, analyzing and parodying her pubescent teenage self with uninhibited abandon and unadulterated joy."