Thursday, September 13, 2001
"Debutante Ball" Presented by Army Community Theatre, 2 p.m. Sept. 23, Richardson Theatre, Fort Shafter. Tickets are $6 and $8; call 438-4480 or 438-5230.
Vanita Rae Smith has her Army Community Theatre "Sunday@2 Matinee Readers Theatre" program off to a good start with a challenging production of "The Debutante Ball." Playwright Beth Henley's characters are odd, and none are particularly engaging, but key performances by Stefanie Anderson and Jo Pruden make this show worth seeing.
Anderson is an actress not seen often enough in local theater. She was absolutely brilliant in Manoa Valley Theatre's 1999 production of "Jake's Women." She also did great work as Truvy in Diamond Head Theatre's revival of "Steel Magnolias" earlier this year.
Anderson is outstanding in a demanding role here. Her performance is all the more remarkable considering that the cast performs seated in chairs on a bare stage, reads the script, and must create characters within those parameters. Anderson's portrayal of emotionally unstable Teddy Walker exposes a kaleidoscope of facets and fault lines in a fractured psyche.
Teddy is her mother's last and best hope. Jen Dugen Parker Turner beat a murder rap by claiming self-defense in the violent death of Teddy's father, but the dead man's family thinks she flat-out murdered him. Jen subsequently married her way into money and now intends to force her way back into "polite society" by way of Teddy's "coming out" as a local debutante. Playwright Henley makes it clear from the git-go that the immediate question is whether the dangerously unstable Teddy can keep her private demons in check long enough to get through the festivities without freaking.
The small but loyal coterie of ACT Readers Theatre regulars will likely be able to anticipate the outcome, but the talented cast makes this dark tale a fascinating experience.
And then there's Jo Pruden (Jen), who has been one of the leading ladies in local theater for years and is usually seen these days playing feisty or venomous women. Her primary role here is another variation of the venomous type. Pruden plays it with her usual skill. Jen is not a woman you'd want to claim as kin.
Pruden outdoes herself in taking on a completely different type of character as her second role, portraying a younger, hearing-impaired woman with limited communications skills. The range required in doing the two roles makes this Pruden's best "Readers Theatre" performance.
Richard Pellett and Shari Lynn play two characters apiece and provide descriptive narration. Pellett is once again the only male in the cast, and there are times when the script requires him to conduct both sides of a conversation. He is generally successful.
Lynn adds another dysfunctional character to her resume with a multifaceted portrayal of Jen's hapless older daughter.
Stage Review
Southern discomfort a bit too chaotic
By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Theatre Critic
| • | "The Debutante Ball"
An Army Community Theatre Sunday @2 Matinee Readers Theatre production 2 p.m. Sunday and again Sept. 30 Richardson Theatre, Fort Shafter Tickets: $6, call 438-4480 |
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Henley enjoyed early and wide success with "Crimes of the Heart", which explores the quirkiness inherent in tight-knit families, but stays within general bounds of normalcy. In this show, the love/hate relationships created by blood and marriage are thoroughly doused in festering pathology.
A genealogical chart will help you follow the action.
Jen married Theodore Parker when she was four months pregnant by a fruit-picker. Within the family, it's impolite to notice the lack of any resemblance in daughter Bliss. Next came daughter Teddy and — despite Parker's drunkenness and cruelty — things stabilized for several years, until Parker was found dead of multiple blows from a cast iron skillet. Jen was tried and acquitted, but the town continues to consider her a murderess despite her subsequent second marriage to wealthy Hank Turner.
As the play opens, Jen is rehearsing Teddy for her "coming out" at that evening's debutante ball. Teddy is an emotionally crushed and broken young woman, a result — it is theorized — from witnessing her father's murder, then being forced to lie about it at her mother's trial.
To round out the household, Bliss crawls home, and Turner invites his niece Frances, whose advancing age and speech impediment make this her last chance to land a husband. A meddling Parker nephew and a long-suffering black maid round out the cast.
Director Vanita Rae Smith has until now been able to sustain clarity while multiple casting her readers' theater productions, but seven roles read by four actors is a challenge made more difficult by several scenes of shouting and sobbing. You may need to keep that genealogical chart handy to track who's who.
While Act One takes place before the ball, Act Two immediately follows it. What happens in between could be retitled "The Debutante Brawl." To follow it, you might need a score card.
In this play, the plots and subplots don't conclude, they're simply abandoned. Persistence may be the only value we're left with, but trudging through mud for it's own sake is not satisfying unless we reach firm ground. And while the dark humor in the play offers laughs, they're laughs we ultimately don't feel good about.
Familiar cast members Stefanie Anderson, Shari Lynn, Richard Pellett and Jo Pruden again do yeoman work.