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'Swim Club' makes splash with laughter
(by Herb Hammer - June 09, 2010)
THEATER, BY HERB HAMMER
'Swim Club' makes splash with laughter
Jesse Jones, Nicolas Hope and Jamie Wooten are not exactly household names. As a matter of fact, these three playwrights, who work together, may have sophisticated theatergoers searching the Internet to find out who they are and why community theaters nationwide are committed to performing their Southern fried plays.
Well, simply put, these three widely produced comic playwrights know how to make audiences laugh. Chagrin Valley Little Theatre has chosen "The Dixie Swim Club," one of the trio's sitcom-ish plays, to perform on the theater's main stage.
Though much of the material has a familiar, plotless ring, there is a predictable storyline. Five members of a college swim team meet every August for a weekend to get away from all that life has thrown at them. They arrive one by one at a cottage on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The five of them, all women, create so much laughter you might wonder how the actors themselves can keep the dialogue rolling along.
What makes "The Dixie Swim Club" work its comic magic is the cast at CVLT.
Jackie Cassara's Sheree forces her tiny appetizers on her friends. Each tiny morsel winds up in a convenient flower pot.
Denise Bernstein plays Lexie, who has gone through a multitude of husbands and is obsessed with her ability to attract even more.
Chris White, as the over-achieving lawyer Dinah, has never quite found the right man, and Vernadette, played with straight-faced hilarity by Kate Tonti, arrives each year with some unexplained recent injury. And finally there is Jenny Barrett, as Jeri, the former nun who has found a completely different lifestyle.
The authors have been able to ring out every laugh without providing a plausible plot. This is quite amazing. The five characters show up each year until they are well into their 70s. We, the audience, get a peak at four of these episodes, beginning when each member is 44 years old.
The dialogue is filled with good-natured gags, and, though you can't accuse the authors of stealing the material, you may be reminded of "The Golden Girls," "Steel Magnolias," "On Golden Pond" and "Same Time Next Year." Mix these all together and you have the perfect laugh-getter, "The Dixie Swim Club." One of the characters even manages to die between visits, but we knew that. Her ashes are thrown into the ocean, but we knew that too.
A play of this sort might cause a regular theatergoer to feel a bit queasy, but the play's weaknesses are minimized, and the light entertainment value will make regular television watchers laugh themselves silly.
Barbara Rhoades directs and gives her five performers the freedom to be just plain funny.
Those who have witnessed Julia Sugarbaker's great speech from "Designing Women" will recognize the applause-getting speech by Kate Tonti about the tradition of Southern biscuits.
Our playwright trio never tries to trick you into thinking something important is going on. They don't even want you to think. It's just these women who connect each year with nothing more on their collective brains than to make you smile. I did.
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