Remember Stephanie DiPaolo onstage in Black Pearl Sings! or as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate? How about Pat Heiss in Show Boat, Mame, or The Full Monty? Did you catch Keely Williams as the plucky, pathetic Shelby in Steel Magnolias? Or can you really date yourself by recalling Ginger Richardson in Rugged Cross, Miss Margarida’s Way, or Women Behind Bars? If so, a ride up to Old Courthouse Theatre in Concord won’t seem altogether like a journey to foreign soil. The current OCT production of Clare Boothe Luce’s The Women features all of these worthies — and nearly three dozen other ladies who don’t seem to mind spending some serious time waiting for their hair to set in beauty salons.
DiPaolo, as Mary Haines, is at the center of the action in this vintage 1936 comedy-satire, assailed on two sides. First there’s her bitchy close friend, Sylvia Fowler, who recommends that Mary try out her manicurist, knowing that the manicurist is sure to pass along the gossip about her husband Stephen’s having an affair. Then there’s the cleverly brazen Crystal, a fragrance salesperson who knows how to play her cards right — in her affair with Stephen and, when she abruptly confronts her, with Mary. Sylvia and Crystal play Mary perfectly, resulting in a fresh windfall of gossip. Ignoring the sage warnings of her mom, who has sniffed out the cattiness of her confidante, Sylvia initiates divorce proceedings.
Bringing the toney Manhattan story full circle requires Luce to provide us with dishy subplots that involve Sylvia’s husband, Crystal’s boyfriend, a countess who holds court at the fateful beauty salon, and Mary’s adorable daughter. The interlocking cogs take 149 minutes plus intermission to grind out a satisfying conclusion. But there’s enough nastiness to keep a man engaged with the all-female cast.
Unbelievably, there are no salon ads in the playbill, though there are enough beauty parlor bibs prancing around to coif a WAC platoon. Directing the large cast, drawn mostly from Concord’s comparatively shallow talent pool, OCT creative director Andy Rassler deploys her recruits imaginatively. Before each act and between each of the scenes — there are a dozen in all — Rassler parades a portion of the squadron across the stage in a variety of choreographed routines, to music that is loud enough to cover the scenery changes going on behind them.
The stratagem is clever and effective, but it does grow wearisome with repetition. I also found myself wishing at times that Rassler had devoted less of her time to choreography and more of it to getting her actresses to project clearly into the hall. Two of the more promising portrayals had to go down as disappointments because Lizzie Schwarz, while a deliciously despicable Sylvia, often spoke too swiftly to be intelligible, and Jenessa Marko, the perfect picture of a gossipy manicurist as Olga, couldn’t be heard in the fifth row. With the two chief blabbers effectively muzzled, Luce’s exposition was subjected to some serious hemorrhaging.
On the other hand, Keely Williams does a stunning turnabout as Crystal with a sangfroid as tight as the luscious costumes designed for her by Kim Baysinger. She appears before us for the first time in a fitting room at a haut couture ladies’ shop, a scene that culminates in an icy confrontation between Crystal and Mary. With models coming in and out displaying the store’s wares for the two combatants before they meet, the scene doubles as a fashion show and features some of the best work I’ve seen from DiPaolo. Her superbly hurt and broken reactions to Olga earlier at the beauty salon nearly compensate for our not hearing what she’s reacting to, and the return bout between DiPaolo and Williams two years later in the denouement is wicked, wicked fun. Meow!
You will not walk out onto N. Spring Street after this production wondering why Baysinger needed three costume assistants. But you may wish to read in your playbill where the climactic scene occurs, for set designer Zachary Tarlton’s budget seems to have run out before he could furnish us with a single clue. So yes, a trip to Concord offers reminders of what community theaters typically are in places outside Charlotte — where our amply supported and subscribed community theater shelters unemployed professionals more often than it nurtures and develops talented neophytes.
Among the Concord locals who are excelling, foremost are Frances Quinn, giving us a colorful Countess de Lage, and Megan York as the enigmatically snippy writer, Nancy Blake. Melissa Bowden knows how to enjoy herself onstage as the perpetually pregnant Edith Potter, and middle-schooler Sydney Sholly does Little Mary like veteran. Completing the Charlotte scorecard, Pat Heiss handles the role of Mary’s mom with an elegant savoir faire, and the venerable Ginger Richardson effortlessly tosses off Mary’s governess — between granting us a profusion of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to watch her labor as a chorine. Hopefully, her dues are now paid in full.
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