REVIEW: Two Out of Three Falls, at The Factory Theater

Bill Daniel's Two Out of Three Falls, now premiering at The Factory Theater, is - for better or worse - exactly what you want it to be, and your capacity for art to arrive as is, with little to challenge or surprise you, will likely determine how you walk away from this production. Don't get me wrong; this is an undeniably fun revenge story told through the art of wrestling, with slick pacing, solid performances, and an adequate amount of thematic heft baked in. That it comes out on top as a pretty good play is a boon in itself, but at the tail end of a season spent in awe of the delightfully twisty work being presented here at the Factory's home on Howard Street, is "a pretty good play" enough?

Let's set the scene, though; something is rotten in the state of Texas. Daniel's work, zippily directed by Ashley Yates, takes Hamlet, ROCKY, and [insert your inspirational sports biopic of choice here] to tell the tale of a vengeful wrestler, Johanna Goodish (Brittany Ellis, relishing a fight-centric leading role), looking to take down Eduardo "El Moreton" Quinones (an appropriately sly Sam Ramirez), the man she believes murdered her father, the previous generation's beloved "King Kong Bruiser" (Eric Frederickson, giving us '80s wrestling ham on a silver platter).

Along the way, she spars with a greasy wrestling mogul (Ron Quade giving a performance that's 60% chest hair), gets inspired by her new coach (a dialed-in Jamaque Newberry), and struggles to emotionally connect with her friend-turned-manager, Meg Bishop (a very charming Sania Faith). Daniel throws every well-worn plot trope and character archetype against the wall to see what sticks, be it Newberry's Mickey Goldmill-esque trainer or Quade's Saul Goodman-esque businessman. Again, if it ain't broke, yada yada yada.

This dedication to tried-and-true story beats, successful as they may be from moment to moment, leaves much to be desired, especially regarding the specificity of certain relationships throughout. Most notably, I was often scratching my head regarding the nature of Johanna and Meg's incredibly vague and not-that-fleshed-out relationship (purely platonic? a history of romance? great questions!). It's left painfully unclear, but at the end of the day, Daniel's script needs a character to spar with Johanna outside of the wrestling scenes so here she is.

Unsurprisingly, the fight choreography and wrestling throughout (courtesy of Wrestling/Fight Director Kate Lass) gives us the thrills and chills one would hope for from a play where the majority of the playing space is taken up by a massive wrestling ring (the commitment to verisimilitude on this front is supremely admirable). The opening night crowd was utterly gleeful to infuse these dynamic wrestling scenes with their own interjections and gusto. However, this energy from the audience would oftentimes find its way into other scenes too, attempting to pump up quieter dialogue scenes in an effort to boost them to the same energetic level that we had experienced prior. As fun as this vibe could be, it made us lose any sense of tonal dynamics that Daniel's script and Yates' direction might've otherwise tried to accomplish (this sense of rhythmic dissonance also applies to the very, very end of the play, a moment of thematic, narrative, and emotional catharsis that goes by so quickly I thought I had genuinely missed something important at the time of curtain call).

For my money, the most compelling moment in the whole play doesn't contain a lick of actual fight choreography. It's the scene immediately preceding the epic final fight between Goodish and Quinones, where our main characters, sitting in a locker room, methodically and intentionally plot out the specific moves and sequences they'll be carrying out against each other for their match. The lingo and parlance of the world of wrestling feels so ingrained in the words and rhythms of the actors on stage, we can't help but get sucked into their plotting and scheming. Finally, a moment of something rising above the well-trod narrative path we've seen before.

The Factory Theater marketed this past season (their 31st, if you can believe it) as "Rage on the Stage," and each of their three mainstage shows this year (not counting the co-pro Muffed) found different ways of processing said rage; Marjorie Muller's The Sporting Life turned feminine rage into gendered, bloody retribution, and Zack Peercy's Kubrickian channeled isolation and depression into the very act of creative collaboration. In Two Out of Three Falls, Bill Daniels wonders aloud whether revenge is even a dish best served in the first place, cold or otherwise. I'm not sure what his answer is, even if it's a pretty good ride trying to figure it out.

Two Out of Three Falls runs an estimated 2 hours with a 15-minute intermission, and performs at The Factory Theater (1623 W Howard) through July 18th 2026. Tickets are available HERE.