PYGmalion Theatre Company to Present TENDER HOOKS By Julie Jensen Next Month

PYGmalion Theatre Company will open its 2024/2025 season with "Tender Hooks" by Julie Jensen, directed by Fran Pruyn, from Oct. 4 to Oct. 19 at the Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts located at 138 West Broadway in downtown Salt Lake City. The show features Jensie Anderson, Jane Huefner, Brenda Hattingh and Addie Bowler. 

A family with five children, each with a different physical deformity, has moved next door to La Priel in her small town in Southern Utah. She is both frightened and preoccupied by them until an inevitable collision produces unexpected changes in La Priel herself. "Tender Hooks" is a play about social class in a rural setting.

Jensen is Utah's most-produced playwright. Her work has been produced in New York, London and theaters nationwide. She grew up in Beaver, Utah, and graduated from College of Southern Utah and Utah State University, receiving a B.A. and M.A. in English. She also holds a Ph.D. in Theater from Wayne State University in Detroit. Having taught playwriting as a guest at more than a dozen colleges and universities, she was a professor of theater at Saint Mary's College and the University of Notre Dame and directed the graduate playwriting program at University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She also spent five years working as a writer in Hollywood. 

Jensen has won dozens of awards, among them the Kennedy Center Award for New American Plays, the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work, the Edgerton Foundation's New American Plays Award and the David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award. She has been commissioned by theaters including the Kennedy Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville and Salt Lake Acting Company. She has received grants from NEA, TCG and Pew Charitable Trusts, among others. She now makes her home in Salt Lake City. 

Jensen spoke about why she was compelled to write the play and how it is relevant in 2024: "Well, it's a play about class and it involves the point of view of a one who is afraid of the people who have moved in next door," Jensen said. "Why is she afraid of them? She judges them, as you know, as less than and not as good as the people in her town or herself, but she's afraid of them, and so it really is a play about fear and class and how those two kind of co-mingle. It's also true, if you look at how we judge 'the other.' It's odd, but true, that we always attribute the same things to 'the other'; they have too many kids, they're dirty, they don't speak right, they eat weird food, they have weird beliefs. It's always the same standard, even though it might be class, it might be race, foreigners, whatever. Still, we still attribute the same things to 'the other.'

"The play takes place in the past. I use my heritage of having grown up in Southern Utah. So I use people that are from the from the past and their values, but it's the same story. If it's about race or it's about class or it's about foreigners, it's always the same story." 

Pruyn talked about what she loves about this play and Jensen's writing in general. "Julie's writing is so economical," she said. "There isn't a wasted word, and the lines are very, very rhythmic and oddly poetic, yet still completely in keeping with the characters.  This show perfectly captures a dialect that I like to call 'somewhere in rural Southern Utah.'   'Tender Hooks' is at the same time funny and very creepy, and in the end kind of life affirming. The audience is always in the inside of LaPriel's very anxious head, which leaves you wondering what is real and what isn't real about the other characters, particularly Mrs. Hicks. Is she dangerous? What about those cats, and that baby?"

She also talked about why the show is exciting from a director's perspective. "There are several unanswered questions about what actually happened to each of the characters, particularly LaPriel," she said. "What happened to her twin brother, and why are the kids missing things like fingers, and why LaPriel is both drawn to and frightened by a family who is so different than her? Or are they? Is it just a slight class difference that makes Margery and LaPriel feel superior to the Hicks family and makes Mrs. Hicks always on the defensive? Letha is such a great tie between the two families."

Huefner, who plays Margery, who is LaPriel's older sister, talked about what appealed to her about the show, as an actor. "The thing that appealed to me most was the possibility of doing a show with my BFF," she explained. "Jensie and I have been dear friends for 40 years, but we've never been in a situation where we could do a show together. What a treat for me! And, I do adore my character Margery. Her cat story cracks me up." 

Hattingh, who plays mother-of-five Mrs. Hicks, also spoke about why the show appealed to her. "The chance to work on a Julie Jensen play with Julie in the room always appeals to me," she said. "But this play is also not a straightforward play. There's a lot of subtext. My character in particular is a tough one to figure out. She could be played several different ways and I love playing with the possibilities."

Bowler, who plays 11-year-old Letha, also talked about the appeal of the show. "I love the uneasy feeling you get when you meet these characters," she said. "You never know when they are lying or telling the truth and they seem to haunt each scene they're in. I love how it makes you feel unbalanced, with a surprising amount of comfort in the simplicity. In one word: it's captivating!" 

Hattingh also spoke about why she thinks the script is relevant now. "There is a lot of judging people on appearance in this play. Judging a book by its cover can lead to 'othering' and fearing those that are not like us. This is par for the course in our society today. Often we don't realize that once we start a conversation, like in the play, a lot of those initial impressions change, mostly for the better. We could use more of that in our communities. 

Huefner added: "The fact that the playwright says this play is about class makes its relevance timeless," she said. "When I read the script, I didn't realize it wasn't set in the current decade. It's human nature to compare ourselves with others, and it feeds the ego to believe that you are somehow superior in some aspect to someone else. However, I think this play also shows that despite differences, there are always connecting points that cross all barriers."

Pruyn also talked about why she thinks this is an important story to tell now.

"I believe that class differences are at the heart of our country's polarization," she said.  "So many people feel diminished next to another group of people who enjoy some privilege, and they are angry about it. Even if that privilege is imagined. This show demonstrates how people can feel better about themselves than others because, 'at least they aren't like _____,' even if their situation is far from ideal.  It also demonstrates how a class of people can be afraid of that other (lower, not as wealthy, not as religious, or racially different) class because they know that an oppressed people can potentially be a violent people. That said, there is no violence in the show, it is not crude, it is a juxtaposition of different values. Maybe."

"Tender Hooks" was developed at Ossabaw Island Artists' Colony in Ossabaw, Georgia, Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, and at Odyssey Theatre, in Los Angeles.

It was the winner of the Mill Mountain Playwriting Award, out of Roanoke, Virginia. 

Pygmalion Productions Theatre Company

"Tender Hooks" by Julie Jensen

Oct. 4 to Oct. 19, Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. 

Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Black Box Theatre, 138 W. 300 South

$15-$22.50 from (801) 355.ARTS (2787) or saltlakeacountyarts.org

Photo Credit: Robert Holman

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