Sordid Lives
Sordid Lives
By Del Shores
Directed by Fran and Frank Hilgenberg
Starring Wyatt Glover, David P Landry Jr, Katrina Tharin, James Zelley
Theatre Downtown, Orlando FL</strong>
Small town life is so idyllic. Neighbors watch over each other, doors remain unlocked, and all the good gossip about alcoholism and infidelity and who’s sleeping with the wrong species spreads faster than Chlamydia in a commune. There’s a lot of plot here in minuscule Winter, TX: Sissy Hickey’s (Pam Baumann) sister is dead; she hit her head after tripping over G.W. Nethercutt’s (Zelley) wooden legs when they were screwing in a cheap hotel. Her daughters Latrelle (Tharin) and La Vonda (Marion Marsh) argue over whether the corpse should wear a mink stole in the 108 degree summer heat, and whether Earl “Brother Boy” Ingram (Glover) ought to attend the funeral. He’s doing twenty to life in the nut house for blatant transvestism while his more fortunate cousin Ty Williamson (Landry) moved to New York and came out as a bit player in the Soaps. La Vonda and Noleta Nethercott (Peri Hope Goldberg) go all Thelma and Louise on the town, shoot up the bar, make all the rednecks dressing drag, and then rob a liquor store. Now THAT’S entertainment!
With enough good roles to fill a phone book, it’s hard to pin down the best of this inbreed. Zelley’s G.W. garnered the most sympathy as the alcoholic philanderer, but homophobic Wardell Owens (Dean Walkuski) looked the best the red boa, lipstick, and Fruit of Looms. All the strong characters were female, or nearly so, with Marsh’s La Vonda and Glover’s Brother Boy going mano-a-mano for the most laughs. Adding to the country feel was Bitsy Mae Harling (Victoria Burns), town tramp and a pretty decent country vocalist even if her mimed guitar chords didn’t look like the ones Chet Atkins used.
There are more than a few ways to view this small town struggle between acceptance and exclusion of the different, but I see it like this: On the sliding scale of family shame, cross dressing is worse than accidental manslaughter but a really good tuna casserole can make up for the loss of a loved one. And bad fashion sense can NEVER be forgiven. As the summer heat settles in, this is the sort of comedy we need to shake off the economy. Let’s drift back to the good old days where any sort of interpersonal conflict could be resolved by beating the crap out of the right person, and take a swipe at someone we love.
For more tickets and more information, please visit http://www.theatredowntown.net
