What I liked
The production is meticulously directed by Stephanie Feury, who ensures that emotions are not only expressed but lived on stage. The result is intense and unpredictable, yet always grounded in truth. Dolores is not only emotionally searing—it is also deeply human and, ultimately, hopeful. At great personal cost, Dolores chooses not just survival, but self-respect. She demands to be treated as a human being—and refuses to accept anything less.
What I didn't like
:)
My overall impression
At the heart of Dolores, Edward Allan Baker’s volatile 45-minute drama currently running at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theater during the Hollywood Fringe Festival, lies the resurfacing of long-suppressed family trauma—and how two sisters grapple with its aftermath. Originally written and staged in the 1980s, the play stuns with its continued relevance. It’s striking how Baker, decades ago, foresaw that our society would one day need to confront those often-ignored, deeply disturbing family histories in order to heal—to achieve a sense of internal harmony with ourselves and the world around us.
Dolores, powerfully embodied by Davonna Dehay, is a character of contradictions: fragile yet steely, vulnerable yet decisive, seductive and cautious, terrified and fiercely resilient. She’s erratic—but not fickle—and throughout the play she seeks, even demands, a safe harbor of compassion and understanding. That harbor is her younger, seemingly content, married sister Sandra—portrayed with grounded sensuality and earthiness by DeeDee Woche.
But Dolores wants more than comfort. She demands truth. She forces confrontation. She refuses to accept Sandra’s evasions, and in doing so, shakes her sister’s carefully constructed emotional defenses. Dolores’s high-pitched pleas—to be truly seen, to be accepted as she is—pierce through Sandra’s numb exterior. Her struggle to reconcile her romantic ideals with a past steeped in control, humiliation, and unmet expectations creates a friction that eventually coaxes Sandra into revealing painful memories of their shared childhood. In those memories, Dolores finally finds clarity—and devastating answers.
Dehay’s portrayal makes Dolores a warrior—though she’s undeniably a victim of the emotional brutality inflicted by an abusive mother and Dolores’s men. Yet despite their efforts to erase her sense of self, Dolores has preserved her belief that she is worthy of dignity and compassion. She refuses to conform. Watching Dehay and Woche together on stage is a visceral experience—their portrayal of sisterhood is raw, layered, and deeply felt. As an audience member, I felt both the joy and anguish of their bond.
The production is meticulously directed by Stephanie Feury, who ensures that emotions are not only expressed but lived on stage. The result is intense and unpredictable, yet always grounded in truth. Dolores is not only emotionally searing—it is also deeply human and, ultimately, hopeful. At great personal cost, Dolores chooses not just survival, but self-respect. She demands to be treated as a human being—and refuses to accept anything less.
