The Sugar Bean Sisters
The Sugar Bean Sisters
By Nathan Sanders
Directed by Joshua Eads-Brown
Breakthrough Theatre, Winter Park FL</strong>
We used to make fun of Arkies and Okies and West Virginia hillbillies, but that’s not PC anymore so now we pick on Floridians. Faye Clementine Nettles (Sylvia Viles-Vicchiullo) and Willie May Nettles (Laurel Clark) live in a shack down in a cane field around behind Okeechobee County. Not much goes on beyond alien landings and flying cat attacks so when the Mormon missionaries knocked the sister’s mysticism and sense of morality convinced them to buy the special underwear. But not everything here is palmettos and cream: Willie bemoans her baldness and lack of sex appeal as Faye makes sandwiches for the Martians. Their sorrows are long lived; years ago their little sister was et by a gator and daddy was hanged for selling bad cane syrup. This setting of sweaty domesticity is upset when tarted up Videllia Sparks (Rochelle Curbow-Wheeler) shows up with a tale of a shining white man who changed her tires when she thought she was lost. She too has a dark secret, and while Willie is off with Bishop Crumley (Jim Cundiff) Videllia and Faye hook up with the Reptile Woman (Kris Wiley) to bake a coral snake surprise. Someone is going to go to the Celestial Kingdom tonight, and not the one that sells mouse ears.
In this timing driven story, motivations are unclear and seem as slithery as the snakes Reptile Woman carries in her shoulder bag. The humor is mostly set up and knock down, and Wiley’s Reptile Woman nearly steals the show. Her curtain speech could show more established theatres a thing or two, and her creepy manner gives her laughs off of innocuous lines like “she was eaten by a gobbly creature.” Miss Sparks was a close second with her bird leggings and dangerously low cut blouse; her descriptions of dancing accidents at the Evil People’s Lounge brought serious gales of laughter, the two hyphenated sisters felt more cartoonish, and their lines seemed mostly barked at one another. It took Cundiff’s uber nice bishop to rein them in, he didn’t get many laughs but showed us that nice people exist even is a town where the alligators are conducting religious pogroms. This is a silly comedy with a really cool set, even if they story has more holes in it than the Nettles screen door you will laugh when the smoke doesn’t get in your eyes.
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