`TEXARKANA WALTZ' a 150-minute extravaganza of myths, religion and the makeup of a family

True, you can certainly learn from past mistakes and do your best to not repeat them, but circumstances change. The future will not be exactly the same as the past. It can't be.

For the longest time watching "TEXARKANA WALTZ," Heller Theater's entry in the Summerstage play festival at the Performing Arts Center, there's some question as to whether the characters will be able to have a future, considering their death-grip on the past.

These aren't just people with good memories. These are people who live, breathe, eat and sleep the past. The good, the bad and the downright ugly, it's all there for them to obsess over.

The result of former Tulsa playwright Louis Broome's epic storytelling -- in combination with Heller director Scott Heberling's staging -- is a work that's occasionally brilliant in both its comic and dramatic sensibilities but that also occasionally misses the mark with some misguided characterizations.

The prologue to Broome's semi-autobiographical play opens -- where else -- in the past, with a couple of young Tulsans, Eddie and Emma, meeting at the Admiral Twin Drive-in concession stand and falling in love. They marry, they move into a little farmhouse and they have two children: a son named Houston and a daughter named Dallas.

Eddie Wickett loved to drink and have a good time at the Cain's Ballroom dancing with Emma to the music of Cowboy Bob. But one night, for no apparent reason, Eddie (Dale Sams) broke a beer bottle and slit Emma's throat from ear to ear.

Eddie (played by Dale Sams) will spend the remainder of the play sitting onstage in an electric chair at the Oklahoma State Prison (the theatricality of an electric chair must have outweighed the accuracy of Oklahoma's method of lethal injection). Many people will visit Eddie before his final hour, asking why he killed Emma (Susan Dergoul). He has the same answer for all: "I was having a bad day."

It turns out Dallas and Houston witnessed their mother's killing, and they've dealt with it in different ways. Dallas grew up a tough nut who moved to Seattle and hides her past from the woman she loves; Houston, meanwhile, fell into a stupor and his entire story here is told through a Cowboy Bob western episode, with Houston dressed in shiny red hat and vest, cowboy pajamas and a cap gun.

We're led to believe that Houston will never return to reality unless this mythic world ends, and the traditional "Cowboy Bob" storyline evolves into a tale of personal revenge: tenderfoot Houston must track down his bad-guy dad for a final showdown, with help from sidekicks like Sheriff Truett (Derek Adams) and Deputy Slim (Rich Bentz) along for the ride.

Meanwhile, back at the present-day, Dallas -- with her lover, Morgan, in tow -- arrives at the Vinita Mental Hospital where Houston has lived for years. It's a reunion that kicks off a long journey in search of truth and understanding for both of them.

Houston's predicament is touching, as is the superb performance by Corey Douglas in this role. Broome's depiction of the American myth that is the "wild, wild west" is both a loving remembrance and a mocking stab at the manufactured old west that doesn't reflect reality any better than Houston's mind. It's a fascinating idea that's well-constructed and executed, with Larry Latham's cartoonish set design of cardboard-cutouts of cacti and tombstones adding to the flavor.

Unfortunately, the cartoonish portrayals extend to most of the Oklahomans depicted here, as well. They seem to be of similar quality to the people CNN seems expert at finding as small-town victims of tornadoes.

George Nelson, so good here in portraying Cowboy Bob, as well as Nurse Bob and Warden Bob, mistakenly plays Father Bob as a religious fundamentalist to be hooted at, mocked for his beliefs as well as his silly delivery and used-car salesman appearance. This absurdity worsens after an encounter with Eddie moments before his execution and a supposed religious transformation -- on the part of Father Bob, not Eddie -- that is in no way believable.

Dallas (Sara Cruncleton) is one of the most one-dimensional characters in recent memory, a mess of a woman who is mad at the world and spends the show with a scowl on her face. Tara Rogan is perfect as her lover, a smart, sexy woman who stays with her stick-in-the-mud partner for some unimaginable reason.

Adams, Bentz, Sams, Dergoul and Susan Webb are all wonderful in this production, a 150-minute extravaganza dealing with myths, religion and the makeup of a family in an intriguing, disturbing and totally original manner.

Heller Theater's production of "TEXARKANA WALTZ" continues with 8 p.m. performances Thursday-Saturday at the Liddy Doenges Theater of the Tulsa Performing Arts Center, Second Street and Cincinnati Avenue.