BWW Reviews: DIXIE SWIM CLUB Plays to Oyster Mill's Strengths

DIXIE SWIM CLUB is a product of Jones Hope Wooten, which isn't a name, it's a combine. Jones, Hope, and Wooten, who do have first names, are a group of television writers - "Golden Girls" and "Designing Women" among their works - who joined forces to become playwrights. Some of their plays are excellent, and among their best known is DIXIE SWIM CLUB. It can be one of their funniest when it comes to individual characters' quips... but it also, to be honest, is a quick and dirty facelift of the far superior STEEL MAGNOLIAS, without the real depth of the original.

It's at Oyster Mill Playhouse right now, where it's at a good home - yes, this is one of the sorts of plays Oyster Mill does best, the small comedy. It's as small as five here, all women (Jones Hope Wooten excels with women characters), who were all on their college swim team together and who have spent their years since summering together on the Outer Banks at the same beach cottage. The play begins with the women coming together for their twentieth summer vacation there, and each following scene is five years later (or possibly more in the case of the last scene, which is indeterminate).

As with STEEL MAGNOLIAS, these women will share laughter, the complexities of their marriages and men, or lack thereof, and illness and injury. They'll laugh, cry, bitch and moan, and celebrate. But it's not as heartwarming, for it's simply doesn't run as deep. It's more funny, and less sincere, as there's more playing for laughs. On the other hand, at moments it's simply funny as hell. A good cast helps with that, and Oyster Mill's cast is far better than not.

Susan Wray Danowitz plays Lexie, the multiply-married, plastically re-arranged Zsa Zsa Gabor of the crowd - money and men are her two best subjects. Danowitz is wildly funny as Lexie, and is a delight to watch. Dinah, the hard-bitten single businesswoman, is played by Oyster Mill veteran Aliza Bardfield. Bardfield is always a fine actor, though the sweetness and gentle humor that make her such a pleasure in Agatha Christie comedies do weaken the impression one has that Dinah should be more of a tough cookie. Stephanie Trdenic plays the former swim team captain, Sheree, who's still annoyingly anal about lists, duties, organization, and everything else... and is the source of running jokes over her horrendously foul-tasting, overly healthy recipes.

Lora Miller plays Jeri Neal McFeeley, better known as Sister Mary Esther - the friend who became a nun, but who at the time of their twentieth vacation has left the convent to find herself, and to shock her swim team sisters. But the true joy of the production is the perfect casting of Kristen Borgersen Ottens as Vernadette, the cranky, crotchety schoolteacher with a difficult husband, impossible children, and a tendency towards tripping over her own two feet. Yes, Vernadette has all the best lines, but Ottens knows what to do with them, and how not to overplay Vernadette, a character who can easily dominate a scene just by being there. (Standing on a stage in a clown suit and crutches when everyone else on stage is in resort wear does lend itself to holding audience focus. It's a fact.)

Chris Krahulec, the director and set designer, has managed to keep the show itself properly paced (the scene changes, alas, are lengthy at points) and the actors' Southern accents mostly consistent (yes, there's a bit of slippage at a few points) though not precisely North Carolina. The set design is lovely, and possibly every bit as good as Allenberry's set from the professional production earlier this season - the choice, made by Krahulec, for the cottage windows facing the beach to be a view of the audience, is an excellent one, making the show, especially the last scene, far more immediate for the audience than was Allenberry's production.

The best moments involve food and drink - Dinah's ubiquitous cocktails, Sheree's unsavory appetizers, and Vernadette's brilliant monologue on biscuits and the Southern way of life. If you see this show for no other reason, Ottens' delivery of Vernadette's diatribe on the evils of health food and the joy of biscuits is sufficient reason to be present. On opening night, the audience broke out in mass spontaneous applause after it, and the tribute to both Ottens' performance and Vernadette's opinions was well-deserved. It's entirely possible that the rest of the show was written just to surround that speech.

At Oyster Mill through July 27. Visit www.oystermill.com for tickets and information. Bring your own buttermilk biscuits.

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