Review: Group Rep Goes Deep South with LAUNDRY AND BOURBON and LONE STAR

Laundry and Bourbon and Lone Star/by James McClure/directed by Barbara Brownell/Group Rep, NoHo/through March 3

From the very top of James McClure's one-act Laundry and Bourbon, best friends Elizabeth (Savannah Shoenecker) and Hattie (Kristin Towers-Rowles) gossip in heavy Texas accents and drink bourbon with such fierce intensity that you will end up either loving or hating them; there is no in-between. Midway Amy Lee (Sarah Zuk) makes her entrance. She is quieter but also creates trouble in her own irritating way.What is it about comedies set in the deep South? Steel Magnolias and Crimes of the Heart pull us in the same way. The women put their claws out yet support one another and have hearts of gold ... and their men? We hear about them via their wives. They act like jerks, love to talk sex in raw detail and treat their cars with more love and respect than their spouses. Unlike the other plays, we actually see the men, apart from their wives, for there is a male companion piece to Laundry and Bourbon. It's entitled Lone Star, after the beer, and it presents Elizabeth's husband Roy (Nick Paonessa), maladjusted since his service in Viet Nam, his younger and weaker brother Ray (R.J. DeBard) and like his wife Amy Lee, the outsider in the group, her husband Skeeter (Todd Andrew Ball).

Set in the small town of Maynard, Texas in the early 1970s, the plays are currently onstage at Group Rep through March 3, In the first play, the ladies fight off the heat by drinking 'til they're sloshed in the middle of the afternoon on Elizabeth's back porch. In the second, not necessarily on the exact same day, the men hit their local tavern in the evening, and drink 'til they're down. The women have a hair pulling catfight; the men pull out their weapons and almost brawl to the death, verbally more than physically, over a pink 1959 thunderbird convertible, which has been totally demolished. It seems to be playwright James McClure's intention in hilarious, over.the.top style, to show that the women and their men are not that different from one another and literally live to play out the raucous lifestyle with unrelenting fervor.

Under Barbara Brownell's superbly paced direction, boith casts are sublime. Brownell really knows these characters inside out, men as well as women and gives all the actors plenty of freedom to let loose. Towers-Rowles steals Laundry and Bourbon with her full-throttled delivery of her opinions and her scathing attacks on everyone including her own kids. She has such fun with the role that this passion crosses the footlights. She has us in stitches. Shoenecker is more subdued as Elizabeth and really shows her emotional connection to Roy, devoting herself to try to save their floundering marriage. Zuk is really good at creating the seemingly naive, yet cunning instigator of the trio. In Lone Star Paonessa and DeBard have such terrific chemistry together onstage that their off center comaraderie as brothers is totally credible. Ball is wonderful in essaying a macho role, unlike most parts he plays.

Chris Winfield's set is dynamite as always displaying the back porch in Act One, and with slight changes at intermission, the outside of the local bar in Act Two. Praise to J. Kent Inasy for perfect lighting, to Angela M. Eads for delicious costuming especially for the red polkadot dress for both Hattie and Amy (see photo above) and to fight choreographer Amanda Newman for her fun catfight.

Don't miss Laundry and Bourbon and Lone Star through March 3 at Group Rep! But...leave the kids at home. This is an adult show with a great deal of raw sexual talk. Adult humor is fine, and it is particularly welcome when underneath, the characters show their true colors as people. Southerners are loud and often times uncouth, but there are traces of these weaknesses in all of us. Thanks to McClure for writing the plays and to Brownell and her cast for a truly enjoyable evening of theatre.

www.thegrouprep.com

(photo credit: Doug Engalla)

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