There’s nothing that broadcasts glamour in quite the way of “The Spirit of Ecstasy,” the winged-lady hood ornament gracing the grill-top of a Rolls-Royce. And for Libby, a girl of no means in small town Alabama, it’s about all she’s got going for her to elevate her schoolyard status.
In Zelda in the Backyard, the tender, affecting and humor-inflected one-woman play by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder, it’s also a central metaphor for the Tennessee playwright to pace through the character’s days and years, particularly those involving her father in the 1970s.
Deftly directed ably by Miles Boinest for PURE Theatre, the absorbing 95-minute production, which runs at Cannon Street Arts Center through Aug. 16, leverages the impressive talents of actor Camille Lowman. As Libby, she recounts directly to the audience the highs and lows of a rough-hewn upbringing, one that eventually propelled her to a life in New York City. And, while Alabama may be in the rearview mirror for Libby, its imprint remains emblazoned on her psyche.
Taking place on an inventively rough-hewn set by Richard Heffner, the play hinges on Libby’s early years toggling between divorced parents. What distinguishes the days spent at Dad’s house are two seminal figures. The first is her father’s domestic partner, Jimmy Ray, a Daisy Dukes-sporting man with whom he regularly spars.
The other is Zelda, a 1961 Rolls-Royce her father named after the famously fabulous if unstable wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Her father, a Vietnam veteran with mad mechanic skills, has resuscitated it from the junk heap into a ride of true beauty, one that readily elevates Libby’s lackluster life.
It’s an apt device to look under the hood of a singular childhood, one shaped in an age not fully embracing of her father’s sexuality, which then turns tragic with the emergence of AIDS. As Libby loves and loses and loves Zelda again, through growing up and grieving, falling in love and finding herself, we feel the emotional tonnage carried by her father, too.
Naturally, being a child of the South of around the same era who also beat it to New York City for a solid stretch, the work resonates. And its folksy flavor is likely to hold more mystique with audiences outside of the Southeast. Neither the playwright nor the performer trades on that to excess, which is often a temptation with Southern-fried fare.
There are, for example, no feckless namechecks of the Piggy Wiggly, and Lowman’s accent is only subtly tinged with the region. What we get rings authentic as one woman’s coming-of-age story navigating a gay father during the advent of the AIDS epidemic, relayed without any extra helping of bathos and instead a compelling candor and gentle humor.
Like the no-nonsense white tank top Libby sports, Lowman wears the role well. As the sole focus of attention, but for an occasional line-drawn projection of Zelda, it is certainly a role that requires heavy lifting. Lowman manages it with deceptive ease, chatting us up and bearing her heart, amiably drawing us to her father’s plight. At times, I did crave even more of a sense of this sympathetic man.
The production also represents a welcome reprieve from Charleston’s woefully fallow summer offerings. True, there was a time when this city could not sustain audiences, and the programming dried up after Spoleto. But with a steady stream of locals and visitors throughout the season, it can — and should be able to now. We just need to change our ways.
Slipping into the sleek, chilled space at Cannon Street Arts Center to get lost in Zelda in the Backyard is a perfect cure for summertime blues. With its mix of light comedy and deeper themes, it may well make you laugh and make you think, but you likely will not sweat it.
IF YOU WANT TO GO: Remaining performances are at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. through Aug. 16. For tickets: visit puretheatre.org.
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