Playwright: Beth Henley
At: Foreground Theatre Company at the Athenaeum, 2936 N. Southport Ave.
Phone: (773) 604-1605; $10-$12
Runs through: June 19
As the colonists of New England represented the values of the Cromwellian Age, and those of the Middle Atlantic States, the Age of Reason, then so does the culture of the Deep South reflect Romanticism in all its irrepressible volatility. But if Tennessee Williams mourned those doomed to live—and die, more often—by their passions, Beth Henley champions the resiliency of those same emotion-racked waifs as they reluctantly adapt, insofar as they are able, to a staid society's expectations.
It is the day before the wedding of Pandora Kingsley to Edvard Lunt, lovers besotted with each other despite his being 'over twice' her age. The bride's mother would be pleased if the marriage were prevented, and so would the groom's son, but it falls to Floral Whitman, the sour-tempered sister-of-the-bride, to do something about it. Her steely determination is exacerbated by her own espousal to a devoted mate of handsome visage and nearly nonexistent libido—a condition raising questions regarding the father of the child she is carrying. Even the preacher seems curiously unenthusiastic about the duties requiring his presence. But if these ruthless egotists are greedy in seizing their day, it is because death and ennui lurk always close at hand, and happiness too ephemeral to be denied for the sake of an orderly cosmos.
Viewed from this perspective, it is not unseemly—quite reasonable, in fact—for a hungry expectant-mom to make a midnight snack of the wedding cake, or for a husband vowing to give his wife whatever she desires to include a no-contest divorce among his gifts. Still, a tribe whose members find contemplative solitude in rolling down hills, or who calmly disclose the location of household firearms to potential suicides, is easy to caricature, particularly by young actors too insecure to embrace the despair engendering their personae's extravagant behavior.
The company assembled by Allen Jeffrey Rein never betray a hint of judgment or discomfort in their portrayals of these eccentric personalities, instead delving the logic of their unconventional solutions with a compassionate tolerance sparking our empathy even as we acknowledge their fundamental amorality. In a universe characterized by uncertainty and chaos, don't we all get by the best we can?
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