Reviewed by Dr. Tiffany Raymond, PhD
Little Lake Theatre continues its 2022 season with Tennessee Williams’ A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur. Lesser-known plays can sometimes be hidden gems, but Creve Coeur is a crepe among the pancake stack of Wiliams’ works.
The play’s thin plot centers on forestalling the reveal of a society-page newspaper announcement to civics teacher Dorothea (Elizabeth Glyptis). The man she thinks is her beau, Ralph (also her school’s principal), is, in fact, engaged to another woman.
The two women who conspire to delay this news care about Dorothea. However, both have self-interested reasons for postponing the reveal, peeling away the complexity and duplicity behind human interactions. The play becomes less about Dorothea’s feelings and more about fulfilling the two women’s own desires. Dorothea’s current roommate Bodey (Misty Challingsworth), wants Dorothea to marry her overweight, cigar-smoking, beer-drinking twin, Buddy, and thinks a planned outing to Creve Coeur park will provide that perfect romantic backdrop. Dorothea’s single colleague Helena (Erin McAuley) is set to be her future roommate in a posher part of town. Helena requires Dorothea’s financial contributions to afford the upscale upgrade.
Costume designer Kathy Wells‘ brilliant use of costuming immediately provides visual cues that differentiate the class strata across the play’s three central characters. The working class Bodey wears a faded gingham apron over a shapeless, nondescript floral dress. Dorothea is solidly middle-class with capri pants and a perky sailor-style shirt. Helena’s upper-middle-class pearls and sharply matched navy dress and hat are heightened by McAuley’s steady holding of a haughty tone.
Dorothea starts the play with her daily exercise routine, which she holds to even on the weekends, suggesting both her drive and her desire to stay in shape for her beau. Glyptis shines when she dreamily tells Bodey about her passionate encounter with Ralph in the front seat of his car that goes “horizontally nearly.” She is both misty-eyed and salacious, and director Helga Terre has her move almost rhythmically during the retelling, giving us a PG-rated ride along to that steamy front seat. Challingsworth exhibits a nervous agitation in hearing this story in light of her aspirations for Buddy and her knowledge of Ralph’s engagement.
Upstairs neighbor Sophie Gluck (Thespina Chistuldies) barges in periodically speaking in German and providing comic relief with exaggerated physical comedy.
Williams’ play is light on action and plot. Terre struggles with developing nuance that fully motivates the character’s actions and makes them believable. At one point, the lights dim as Helena reflects on loathing that she had dined alone three times in the past week. But there’s no vulnerability in McAuley’s soliloquy to help us sympathize with her and see past her high-and-mighty walls.
Set designer Patrick Cannon (also Little Lake’s artistic director) creates an impressive apartment space complete with steps up to Dorothea’s bedroom, visual reinforcing her class status over Bodey. Prop designer Leigh Ann Frohnapfel‘s prop mash-up reflects the unfocused character portrayals. Helena often disparagingly references the apartment’s garish color palette, conjuring up visions of tacky décor. Still, the uncluttered space doesn’t align with the disdain of her proclamations. While the play is supposed to be set in the 1930s, the thick pile circular area rug in an eye-popping pink looks like it would be at home in today’s dorm room.
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur runs through July 31st at Little Lake Theatre in Canonsburg, PA. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit https://www.littlelake.org/alovelysunday.
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