Review: THE DIXIE SWIM CLUB at New Theatre Restaurant

"Dixie Swim Club," now playing at the New Theatre Restaurant in Overland Park, is perfect dinner theatre fare. It is an enjoyable evening of light comedy, mixed with just a touch of pathos under the expert direction of Dennis D. Hennessy and the performance of five excellent character actors.

The show begins with the annual beach reunion of five southern ladies who have once been teammates on their college swim team. It is five years post-graduation.

Featured player sexy Lexi (Morgan Fairchild) is struggling through yet another divorce. Sheree (Cheryl Weaver) is the former team captain who still takes it upon herself to organize everything. Dinah (Cathy Barnett) is a career woman, a lawyer, who has given up everything to succeed -- save a few martinis. If Poor Vernadette (Debra Bluford) didn't have bad luck, she wouldn't enjoy any at all. More fortunately, the funniest dialog ends up in her delightful hands. Jeri Neal (Jennifer Mays) is the good girl. She became a nun, until she decides she would prefer to be a mother.

"Swim Club's" four scenes and two acts follow this quintet's journey through life at intervals. These five friends meet every year for a single weekend at a North Carolina beach house to reminisce, commiserate and tease. In a way, the play is structured very much like the very successful 1978 film "Same Time Next Year" with Alan Alda and Ellyn Burstyn. In this version, the married lovers are replaced with the five friends.

As the years pass, the friends experience the things that most of us endure. You feel like you know these people.

The humor is very akin to what a viewer might see in a good situation comedy with some clever sight-gags. The impeccable timing of these ladies makes the show a lot of fun for the audience. Many of the sight gags are enjoyed through Vernadette. She is forever plagued with a needed cane, or crutches and a clown suit, a surgical boot, or a cervical collar, or the curse of forgetfulness usually as the result of some comic mishap. The initial gag is that Jeri Neal (the nun) shows up eight months pregnant through artificial insemination after dropping out of the convent. She almost immediately goes into labor.

Sets are excellent. The lighting in the whole place is remarkable. The sound is right on.

New Theatre Restaurant is a thoroughly professional operation seating almost 700 patrons in spacious comfort. The food is very good. The service is pretty much flawless with desert served between acts. It would be hard to imagine anywhere that the evening could be managed more expertly.

"Dixie Swim Club" continues through July 2. Tickets are available at www.newtheatrereataurant.com or by telephone at 913-649-7469.

Photo courtesy of New Theatre Restaurant

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