Rehashing old times and lively gossip, an occasional reference to somebody’s sore spot and maybe even a snide remark worked in here and there, all, okay. Everyone knows how reunions go.
But our honored elders fighting like cats and dogs and stealing one another’s boyfriends?
I am talking the view from the golden years of Penny Albright Petersen’s “Reunited,” Curtain Call style; which is to say, fun sifted through experience.
The focal point is five women getting together after 40 years; the occasion, their college graduation and one of their birthdays, Betty’s.
Did I say birthday? Yes, but birthday girl only incidentally turned 65. The main thing is Betty got her first social security check. Now she is officially one of the not so very few who get back the payroll deduction.
Is there no end to this cause for celebration?
No, none whatsoever.
Think age. Think women. Think men among women regardless of age. The script possibilities have been feeding film-and theatergoers for generations and always will.
In this case, it is a free-for-all geometry of love triangles and crazy eights.
Leslie Foley is the not entirely happy birthday girl in excruciating need of reassurance her looks aren’t fading, and her alcoholic husband (Dan Rian) is busy chasing women behind her back. Foley and Rian, vulnerable wife and neglected husband, here, that combination doesn’t devastate; but it certainly stings.
Cherie De Keyser and Carrie Johnson are the singles who neither sizzle nor fizzle but lure; their prey, Bruce Erickson, the dashing widower, less playing the field than romping through the daisies. Two vamps and one cad, the arithmetic adds up.
And how about a less dynamic than delightful duo for rounding out rough edges, softening any harshness and putting matters into a purely comic perspective? How about a loudmouthed, recovering alcoholic turned physical fitness freak and an ethereal, free-floating New Ager who communes with dead? Say Monica Chilton and Jean Dotson? These two suit the need to a T.
How director Jonathan Reis got this collection of rambunctious independents pulling together for two hours, who knows?
“Reunited’s” magic doesn’t dazzle, doesn’t flicker. But the shine is there for awhile to reflect on.
Taproot Theatre update
Significant water damage from a major fire next door forced Greenwood’s Taproot Theatre to move the closing weekend of its production of “Enchanted April” to Seattle Children’s Theatre. As of The Enterprise’s deadline, no announcement has been made about where the troupe’s next production, “Sherlock Holmes and The Case of the Christmas Carol,” will be staged.
From all of us to Taproot, break a leg, guys. Best of luck.
For updated information on the clean up process and how to donate to the restoration, visit www.taproottheatre.org or call 206-529-3676.
Reactions? Comments? E-mail Dale Burrows at entfeatures@heraldnet.com or grayghost7@comcast.net.
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