BWW Reviews: Sentimental and Funny DIXIE SWIM CLUB Reigns at Chaffin's Barn

There is absolutely no doubt about it: The playwriting trio of Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten very clearly know the people about whom they write so prolifically. Their affection and respect for the Southern way of life is obvious in every honey-drawled word, as is their abundant understanding of Southern people and folkways themselves. It's something that fairly reverberates through every line, every script, every moment they create for the stage-and it provides a heartbeat that is as real as the smell of honeysuckle hanging heavily on the warm summer winds.

And while some of their characters are larger than life in the way we Southerners like to think we are most of the time, and the plot devices somehow outrageously unbelievable yet completely plausible, in Dixie Swim Club-the comedy now onstage at Nashville's venerated Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre-they draw portraits of five women who seem so genuine and whose hearts are so obviously real that this comedy might be their most accessible, its sentimentality evocative of a cotillion filled with girls in white dresses and boys with slicked-back hair escorting them across the wide verandas of some country club tucked away amid the magnolias surrounded by manicured green lawns.

Certainly, there are moments in Dixie Swim Club during which you find yourself guffawing, laughing out loud, chortling even, as the hurricane-defying, cocktail-shaking, sundress-wearing women are brought vividly to life by director Bobby Wyckoff's ensemble of engaging actors. The rapport among the five actresses is palpable making the shared history of the five characters all the more heartfelt and compelling. Thus, Chaffin's Barn's production bears the monogram of an old Southern family brought to life with beauty, grace and an unerring and very knowing sense of humor that derives from a shared lifetime of experiences.

In the play, which takes place at a summer cottage on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, five longtime friends-who first met as members of their college swim team-gather every year to share the flotsam and jetsam of their lives, the shared memories of past athletic glories and the hopes and dreams of a future still to come. The situation is one that seems uniquely Southern, although it is in reality a universal tale of enduring friendships remembered and honored through the years.

But Jones-Hope-Wooten, as the playwrights are collectively known by their myriad fans the world over, create characters whom you feel as if you know. They could be your mothers, your sisters, your cousins, your classmates, your coworkers. So beautifully crafted is Dixie Swim Club-and make no mistake about it, the play is sweetly sentimental despite the sometimes broad comedy on display-that the annual reunion of the five women will remind you of the same sense of reconnection you might feel when brought together with your own family, both by birth and by fortuitous happenstance.

The writers capably capture the feel of the South throughout the play's two acts. The women are in their mid-40s when we are introduced to them (some 22 years after their college graduation) and in subsequent scenes we gather together with them as they age gracefully, if somewhat noisily, into the same Southern matrons who were their mothers and grandmothers. They are just another link in a chain of gardenia-scented women who carry on all the regional traditions we love (like freshly baked buttermilk biscuits dripping with honey and melting butter, stacks of Southern Living in the magazine rack next to the chintz-covered sofa, or hobnail glasses sweating in the heat from the iced tea contained in them).

If you don't recognize at least one of the women in Dixie Swim Club as an archetype of the new Southern belle who's made herself at home in your own life, then you're far more likely to see all of them as someone from your circle of friends.

Wyckoff's ensemble of actresses gives voice to the five characters with confidence and consistent focus throughout the two-hour play and his choice of music to punctuate the scenes is on-target and sure to prompt memories of times recalled.

Rebekah Durham is perfectly cast as Dinah, a high-powered Atlanta attorney whose steely exterior is made all the more palatable by her ready sense of humor and unwavering ability to express herself. Durham, quite frankly, is one of the most versatile actresses to be found on any stage, anywhere, but we are so lucky that we find her on a Nashville stage. With her unmistakably smoky voice and supreme stage presence, she delivers a richly drawn performance as Dinah that is colorful and multi-faceted.

Kim Nygren's performance of the boy-crazy Lexi (despite their ages-and whether he's a 20-year-old hunk selling blueberries on an exit ramp or a silver fox languidly passing time on the beach-it's apparent that Lexi continues to be drawn to the same kind of boy who first found himself in her sights as a young girl) is winningly flirty and flighty, as whimsically romantic as Scarlett's toying with all the beaux in the county, and as emotionally vacuous as an ill-fated one-night stand that started out at the Holiday Inn happy hour. Nygren's range, on display as Lexi deals with one self-made crisis to another or as she wrestles with medical realities, is impressive and adds greater shadings to the character.

Kelly Lapczynski's Vernadette leads a life filled with heartache and disappointment, but as written she's got a wicked sense of humor made all the more biting by the actress' delivery. When Lapczynski delivers Vernadette's treatise on the Southern way of life, she speaks for everyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line who laments the encroachment of the impending strip mall filled with Starbucks and Whole Foods, the homogenization of modern America slowly eradicating everything that makes the South unique and special.

Playing Jeri Neal (obviously, there has to beat at least one character with a double-name for the show to truly be evocative of the region), Vicki White's impeccable performance is supported by her expressive physicality and her expert comic timing. Credit is also due White for aging so gracefully-her 74-year-old Jeri Neal is wonderfully real, sweetly genuine.

As Sheree, the team captain who simply refuses to give up the job even after 50 or so years, Holly Butler fares best in the play's later scenes, looking age-appropriately stylish in her color-coordinated wind suit and platinum hair. The play's final scene, in particular, gives Butler the opportunity to shine, her moment in the spotlight reacting to the voices of her friends is touching and emotional.

While laughter through tears might be considered the purview of other Southern playwrights (one in particular), Jones-Hope-Wooten show their own deft hand at creating a believable portrait of Southern women that is so accessible and so affecting. Their humor remains as potent and as rollickingly high-falutin' as anything you've seen from their creative collective, but in Dixie Swim Club they show off their ability to provide humor leavened by seriousness and, in so doing, they reveal their golden-hearted aspirations amid the musical lilt of a Southern accent.

• Dixie Swim Club. By Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten. Directed by Bobby Wyckoff. Presented by Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theatre, 8204 Highway 100, Nashville. Through September 30. For details, go to www.dinnertheatre.com; for reservations, call (615) 646-9977.

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