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And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little-Indeed! |
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| by Sherri Rase | |
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A FRIEND |
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photo courtesy of Studio Rase
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(left to right) Victoria Steele as Catherine, Julia DiPietro as Anna & Melissa Surow as Ceil, the Misses Reardon
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The current production at New Jersey's Nutley Little Theatre, which opened on November 6, is a darkly comic piece, Paul Zindel's "And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little," expertly directed by Penny Potenz Winship. It's a play which inspires your laughter, at times, that might sound like a bark, erupting from somewhere near your solar plexus, and bubbling, almost unwillingly, from your lips. When you meat-uh, meet-the multiple Miss Reardons you'll understand why.
Three sisters, not unlike Chekhov's, yet through an American glass, bleakly, are all educators. They were raised almost entirely by their now-dead mother. Older sisters Catherine and Ceil occasionally were allowed to take the bus into New York City to see their father, who ran away to the Village following his paramour, while Anna stayed home. Now, from these three well-educated grown women, Anna a chemistry teacher, Catherine an assistant principal, and Ceil a superintendant of the local school system, the emotional wreckage of their lives emerges, sometimes explosively, and other times like delicate pottery shards from an archaeologist's deft brush. We enter the action at the point where Anna has had a nervous breakdown after being accused of molesting one of her male students. The interior is Catherine and Anna's apartment, where the three sisters grew up, and where the two unmarried sisters lived with their mother until her death, not too long ago.
First performed in 1971, the play was originally published in the mid-1960s, and Marisa Merrigan Robertazzi's set is evocative not only of the period, but is also sprinkled with furniture pieces and décor from the time when Mama Reardon would have been most happy. A Chinese lacquer cabinet is the bar, and a small buffet holds vintage mixing bowls and a blender. A small settee out of "I Love Lucy" and a dining set that has seen better days complete the tableau. Pictures fading and aging, as the three daughters age, define the walls. Deft lighting by Lee Guest Moore, great costuming by Pat LaRocco, and Elyse Halloran's sound design make for a walk back in time, to when life was not really simple at all.
This is a powerful cast, especially the principals (no pun intended) Victoria Steele as Catherine, Melissa Surow as Ceil Adams, and Julia DiPietro-Renshaw as the unfortunate Anna. These three women are sisters and their bonds are partly love, partly duty and partly the rusting iron of pain salted by tears. The three have barbed fish hooks in one another and one of the crushing blows for Anna and Catherine is Ceil's behavior when their mother passes. Sounds like any one of our neighbor's families, or even our own.
Catherine strides the stage like a caged tigress, and when this Miss Reardon drinks a little, she doesn't calm down, but her energy is directed in a somewhat different direction. Steele's gimlet gaze falls on family, friend, and foe, and finds the entire world wanting. Anne Kenny Simpson as the clueless Mrs. Malaprop of the condo building, cosmetic-selling Mrs. Pentrano, is a wonder in a June Cleaver gown. Very much in her own world, Mrs. Pentrano wants to make sure her bottom line, and her reach in gossip, improve. Josh Wolfe does yeoman's duty as the benighted and constantly corrected delivery boy. Ceil arrives for cocktail hour straight from work, and the contrast between Anna's pajamas and robe and Ceil's work wear is dramatic. While Catherine prepares a vegetarian repast, Ceil watches Anna tear apart the bookcase searching for their mother's gun. Their mother's gun?!? The action really heats up though with the arrival of Fleur and Bob Stein-Joyce Slous and Gerry Kirschbaum. If we had a volatile mix with the sisters, we're now putting out a fire with gasoline!
Fleur Stein is a guidance teacher at the school where Anna's alleged incident and subsequent breakdown occurred. She and Bob are unwittingly bringing exactly the wrong gift for Anna, who now won't eat anything with a face ... and when Bob gets to weigh in with his opinion on Anna's situation, he thinks he knows exactly what her problem is and how to fix it. Of course, there is a fair amount of waltzing around topics before the fuel ignites. Fleur is a well-meaning semi-intellectual socialite, who knows what she wants, and has a social-climbing idea of how to get it. But as the saying goes, there is well-done, and its opposite, which is well-meant. Bob sends the action in a somewhat different direction when he boils over like an unwatched pot. Kirschbaum seethes with Bob's emotions and Fleur finally pushes him indirectly and too far.
What is Anna's secret? Why did she break down? What's the burr under Catherine's saddle, where Ceil is concerned, that makes her look at her sister as if she's got something sour on her tongue-oh, wait, she does! But it is words that are bitter, as they lie, and lie.
See "And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little" now through November 21, with shows on Friday and Saturday evenings, November 6 and 7, 13 and 14 and 20 and 21 at 8 p.m., and Sundays, November 8 and 15 and Saturday, November 21 at 2 p.m. Tickets are available now via NutleyLittleTheatre.com or call 877/238-5596 for more information. Great shows in a gem of a theatre-treat yourself and go live!
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