Review: DORA'S GENTLY USED DREAMS STORE at The VORTEX Theatre

From November 13–23, The VORTEX offered a rare kind of theatrical experience: intimate, sensory-rich, and brimming with imagination. In the Pony Shed, a small outbuilding that seats roughly twenty audience members, the regional premiere of Morgan McKenzie Kauffman’s DORA’S GENTLY USED DREAMS STORE unfolded like a dream itself; unusual, tender, and full of hidden treasures waiting to be discovered.

Kauffman’s script introduces us to a shop where dreams that have been outgrown, forgotten, or set aside are gathered and made available for new dreamers. The premise is whimsical yet grounded in emotional truth; an exploration of memory, longing, and the deeply human practice of clinging to hopes or letting them go. Dora, the shop’s odd but perceptive proprietor, curates jars of dreams with care, humor, and a surprising authority that makes the metaphor feel vividly alive.

Under the direction of Faith Sanders, the production makes excellent use of the Pony Shed’s modest size. Leaning into the constraints, Sanders gives the performance an economy of movement and intimate staging that feel tailor-made for such a close audience-performer relationship. The center aisle serves as a kind of runway for stories and dream enactments, bringing Dora’s world quite literally within arm’s reach. This allows the audience to feel folded into the action as guests in the shop,  a sense of invitation that is crucial as the play unfolds, creating a space where imagination is shared and gently guided.

The production design by Remy Joslin is nothing short of enchanting. The Pony Shed bursts with visual stimuli: shelves stacked with jars and bottles; cardboard rockets; doll limbs; tinfoil stars; an array of garlands; parasols; twinkling Christmas lights; crochet pieces; pressed flowers; incense; and fabrics of every texture draped like dreamscapes come to life. The shop feels like a hybrid between a curiosity cabinet, a child’s imagination, and a thrift store run by a benevolent witch.

This set design is enhanced by a sound and lighting design which rounds out the sensory world with artful restraint. Few overhead lights, a single floor lamp, carefully executed shadows, and the occasional glimmer of reflection give the space a cozy, lantern-lit softness. The sound design, using tinkling bells, ringing chimes, a gong, pre-recorded voice, improvisatory musical loops, and even the incidental sounds of planes and neighboring patrons, works beautifully. Instead of breaking immersion, these elements reinforce the idea that dreams are porous and unpredictable, slipping in through cracks from the outside world.

Allanah Maarteen (Dora) carries the production with a performance that is strange, luminous, and grounded in real emotional resonance. Maarteen fully embodies Dora’s quirks with her wry humor, her earnest affection for people’s forgotten dreams, her flashes of frustration at commercialized aspirations, and her childlike delight in surprising moments. (Photo at top of Allanah Maarteen photo by Errich Petersen.)

Maarteen’s physicality is especially striking. Dream sequences unfold with full-bodied commitment—sometimes playful, sometimes haunting—inviting the audience into a kind of ritualized storytelling. The script’s warm invitation to self-reflection comes alive through Maarteen’s ability to shift fluidly between oddball shopkeeper, wise guide, and co-dreamer.

One of the production’s most delightful moments involves audience participation as viewers mask their eyes while a few brave patrons share dreams to be “jarred.” Maarteen guides this moment with gentleness and generosity, dissolving boundaries between actor and audience and reminding us that dreams always carry a touch of vulnerability.

DORA’S GENTLY USED DREAMS STORE is intimate, textured, and deeply human. What might have felt small becomes expansive thanks to the care poured into every sensory element and the thoughtful collaboration among director, performer, and designer. It is a production that asks us to remember the dreams we’ve misplaced, to honor the ones that shape us, and to leave room for the ones we might yet discover.

In a world that often feels hurried and heavy, The VORTEX’s delicate, whimsical staging of this piece is a gift and a reminder that imagination still has the power to heal and that sometimes the smallest spaces hold the biggest magic.

DORA'S GENTLY USED DREAMS STORE

by Morgan McKenzie Kauffman

Theater Company: The VORTEX Theatre

Venue: The VORTEX Theatre Pony Shed, 2307 Manor Rd #2135, Austin, TX 78722

Thursdays at 7:00, Fridays &  Saturdays at 7:00 & 9:00 p.m.; Sundays at 6:00 p.m.

Running Time: 1-¾ hours, 1 15-minute intermission intermission

Tickets: $15-39