Sordid Lives
Directed by Don Brandenburg
April 2-4, 8 p.m.; April 5, 3 p.m.
$15-$25
Footlight Players Theatre
20 Queen St.
(843) 722-4487
www.etix.com
Two fabulous theater lovers give their take on Sordid Lives, a play by Del Shores currently at the Footlight Players Theatre.
Greg: Well, if we can pry you away from that dinner menu that came in the program …
Shane: They have bacon cheeseburgers.
Greg: First, a public service announcement. Very early in the production, a woman in a barroom get-up and a trashy tattoo …
Shane: I hope that was for the production or we just offended somebody.
Greg: Well, she starts singing a song and the word “bitch” is featured prominently. She calls out “bitch,” and then the audience is supposed to respond by saying “bitch.” We say this, because there was one excited queen in the audience on opening night who got really upset when the rest of the crowd wasn’t playing along. Now … on to the play.
Shane: Sordid Lives is about a Southern white-trash family coping with the death of the mother who became a bit of a vixen late in life. Her grown-up children and their friends try to deal with it in their own dysfunctional way.
Greg: In other words, take your last family crisis and throw in two wooden legs, a Tammy Wynette drag, and one very painful smoking-cessation device. Go see it, just don’t take your mama — she might get some ideas!
Shane: Sordidness abounds. The story is such campy fun and this production didn’t disappoint.
Greg: The ensemble was very strong. The most comical performances came from Rhonda Kierpiec as Sissy Hickey and Linda Esposito as Juanita. They not only met expectations, they jumped over them and left us slapping our knees. The lengths Kierpiec has to go to for one laugh in particular had to be painful, but it was hilarious. Just send us the bill for the burn cream.
Shane: And when the scene opens and she’s chatting on that phone, you know exactly where you are. You’ve been in that living room. You feel like you could walk on that stage and sit down and have a glass of iced tea together.
Greg: And a valium. And then there’s Esposito.
Shane: Scene stealer! I hardly remember Juanita from the movie. She had the same lines, but Esposito’s delivery was hilarious.
Greg: Boogie Dabney as the grandson and closeted soap actor Ty Williamson also gave a strong performance. Though you have to really suspend reality to believe that man was ever fat as a child.
Shane: Oh, great. All this talk about
waistlines is going to ruin my bacon cheeseburger!
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