By John Lyle Belden
Things don’t feel as perfect when you are past sixty.
“Morning’s at Seven,” the title of a popular comedy by Indiana-born writer Paul Osborn, is a line from the Robert Browning poem that famously says, “God’s in his heaven – all’s right with the world,” reflecting a moment of perfection.
Presented by Center Stage Community Theatre of Lebanon, directed by Jan Jamison, the play presents the story of four sisters of a certain age still living in the same neighborhood (three of them sharing a back yard) in the 1920s.
In the home on stage left (audience right), Cora (Cathie Morgan) lives with husband Thor Swanson (Sydney S. Loomis) and never-married sister Arry Gibbs (Elizabeth Young-Collins), who was invited to stay with them 40 years ago, and circumstances just never changed.
On the other side of the stage is the home of Ida Bolton (Beth Popplewell), husband Carl (Scott Stockton) and son Homer (Ryan Moskalick). Up the street somewhere backstage is the home of oldest sister Esther (Molly Kraus) and her husband David Crampton (Rick Sharp), a retired college professor with a very low opinion of his wife’s family.
The opening scene conversations show these folks making a lot out of what little goes on in their lives, setting a tone of gentle eccentricity. This gets even odder with the arrival of Homer with his girlfriend of the last 12 years (the last five engaged), Myrtle Brown (Amy Keitt). He is 40, she 39, and there is even a house in town prepared for them, yet there seems to be no hurry for marriage and Homer moving out of his old room.
This atmosphere of general silliness contains some very serious issues. Esther makes a surprise visit in defiance of her controlling husband’s insistence she never see them. Meanwhile Carl has severe depressive “spells” in which he questions his whole life’s purpose. David arrives and haughtily declares his wife can no longer live on the main floor of their house. But with his background in philosophy, David takes interest in Carl’s laments and starts to mentor him – while exploiting his home-improvement skills to make his “crystal fortress” into a duplex.
As this goes on, Thor finds himself caught between Cora’s desire to have a future only with him and Arry’s fear of growing older alone. This hints at a deeper secret, which the other sisters feel they have figured out.
By the next morning, we wonder, will all be right with their world again?
This juxtaposition of issues that feel modern with the quaint atmosphere of early 20th century Americana makes for a narrative both charming and intriguing. Jamison relished the opportunity to give seven of the nine roles to older actors, who show themselves quite lively and capable of the ironic immaturity called for in a good comedy. Each presents their long-set quirks in entertaining fashion, even the “younger” roles. Moskalick’s Homer is practically a caricature of a “mama’s boy” (we’d see him as a bit on the spectrum nowadays), while Keitt’s Myrtle maintains impeccable manners and finishing-school charm while working to bring about her long-deferred nuptials. Throughout we see that age doesn’t alleviate fears, just reshapes them.
Performances of “Morning’s at Seven” are the evenings of Fridays and Saturdays, afternoons of Sundays, through Oct. 4 at 604 Powell St. in Lebanon. Get info and tickets at centerstagecommunitytheatre.com.
