play

Take a ride with Civic’s ‘Miss Daisy’

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By John Lyle Belden

Sometimes, it’s nice to have the entertainment equivalent of comfort food.

Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre presents “Driving Miss Daisy,” the Pulitzer-winning play by Alfred Uhry, directed by Civic executive artistic director Michael J. Lasley. It’s a familiar story, thanks to both it being a heartwarming hit that’s easy to stage with three actors, and its adaptation into an Oscar-winning movie.

It also has the familiar feeling from being based on Uhry’s own relatives and including events that occurred in Atlanta in the 1950s and 1960s. The plot’s not complicated: Seventy-two year old Daisy (Ellen Kingston) has crashed her new automobile, and her son Boolie (David Wood) insists she no longer be allowed to drive. She stubbornly refuses to hire a driver, so he does – Hoke (Antoine Demmings), a middle-aged man of varied driving experience. What follows is the growing friendship between the old Jewish woman set in her ways and her Black driver with unflagging good nature and saintlike patience.

What makes this worth your ticket are the performances. Wood keeps Boolie genuine in his love for his mother and respect for Hoke, and his voice maintains a nice Georgia lilt that enhances his moments on the stage.  Kingston embodies Daisy with persistent toughness that never goes bitter, like a beloved grandma.

As for Demmings, his Hoke presents the big smile and easy manner that keeps him in good stead with White folks of that place and time, yet it’s genuine pleasure, not a stereotypical “Uncle” put-on. Still, he is his own capable man, and quick to gently say so if he feels it necessary.

The story flows easily, thanks in part to the scenic and lighting designs of Ryan Koharchik. Jay Hemphill is assistant director, and Nicole Cooper is stage manager.

The ride is not always smooth, but the journey is sentimental, with an interesting view. Come along at the Studio Theater at the Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Carmel, through March 30. Get info and tickets at civictheatre.org or thecenterpresents.org.

‘Blackademics’ serves challenging menu

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By John Lyle Belden

Inspired by television shows and networks devoted to the culinary arts, many of us would love the opportunity for a unique dining experience. It could be said to be careful what you ask for, but for a pair of “Blackademics,” one doesn’t start to understand the nature of what they have gotten into until after that first tiny bite.

Ann (AshLee Baskin), professor at the local liberal arts University, is grateful for a nearly-impossible reservation to this unique café. She wants to celebrate her gaining tenure with her friend Rachelle (Chandra Lynch) who also teaches African-American literature, but at the State college. Curiously, the room is bare. Their server, Georgia (Caroline Sanchez), tells them they are the only guests, and the courses will come soon – but first, a single morsel from a “medley of seeds.”

It takes some time for even a single table to arrive. As the evening progresses, it turns out that Ann and Rachelle must compete for literally everything – a chair, a small plate of food, a utensil – in contests that relate to their careers, academic savvy, and cultural awareness.

“Blackademics,” a dark comedy by Idris Goodwin presented by Fonseca Theatre Company, directed by Ansley Valentine, draws us into an absurdist work – echoes of Samuel Beckett with a dash of “Get Out,” flavored with today’s civil rights struggles. While great progress was made over the last century, many frustrating details remain unresolved, including the disparity in numbers, especially of Black Women, in policy positions of universities.

Questions, such as if Ann can actually affect change from her tenured position, or how Rachelle deals with being “not ethnic enough” for the current academic trends, get a gourmet reduction to a mélange of metaphor. Will defending Black History Month literally get you a place at the table? The competition doesn’t end until the meal is over; who will be worthy of the main course?

Sanchez is delightful with just a touch of sinister as our witty waitress, keeping the audience and our two ladies guessing until her nature finally gets the best of her. Baskin and Lynch ably embody the stress of doing what they see as both labor and calling. Even their assumed sisterhood is challenged – are they only friends because they’re Black?

The Twilight-Zonish goings-on help make the big issues easier to chew, and after this intense 80-minute play, you can discuss the topics later, maybe over dinner.

Make your reservation for “Blackademics,” Thursdays and Fridays at 7 p.m., 4 p.m. Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays, through March 31 at 2508 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis. Info and tickets at FonsecaTheatre.org.

‘Grand’ look at love and relationships

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By John Lyle Belden

Welcome to Grand Horizons Independent Living Community, conveniently located about an hour’s drive from Philadelphia, Pa., or Washington, D.C. In nice apartments with neighbors close at hand a retired couple like Bill and Nancy French, married 50 years, are free to do whatever they want.

Nancy: “I want a divorce.”

Bill: “Okay”

Welcome to “Grand Horizons,” the Broadway comic drama by Bess Wohl presented in its Indiana premiere by The Hyperion Players, directed by Nicole Amsler.

Bill (Chris Otterman) and Nancy (Wendy Brown) prepare for their split as if it were just another household chore, but their sons and daughter-in-law are, to put it mildly, freaking out. Brian (Matt Hartzburg), a high school theatre teacher, is beside himself, wondering if there’s some mystery illness or dementia at play. Older brother Ben (Todd Isaac), a lawyer, is stumped at the illogic of it all, while his very pregnant wife Jess (Morgan Marie French), a couples counselor, tries to employ her skillset to no avail.

There are some deep issues here, including the central couple’s affections outside their marriage – Nancy for now-deceased old flame, Hal, and Bill for new girlfriend, Carla (Cathie Morgan). There is exploration of the nature and meaning of love: Did the Frenches lose it, or ever really have it? And how has it affected their sons, who are each hopeless people-pleasers – Ben with his checkbook, and Brian with his desire to cast every kid in his class whether the roles exist or not.

Brian’s loneliness and confusion comes through in a scene where he brings home a potential one-night stand, Tommy (Austin Uebelhor), who quickly alerts him that neediness is not a turn-on.

As for Ben, he is coming to grips with the actual dysfunction in his upbringing, suddenly afraid of what it could mean as he starts a family of his own. This stress also pushes Jess to the limit.

This examination of relationships and how we feel and communicate blends moments of heartfelt memory and longing with hilarious family-sitcom punchlines. Since older-person roles are usually supporting, it was nice to see Brown and Otterman really shine as the leads. Hartzburg and Isaac portray well two men who haven’t quite emerged from their boyhood insecurities, while Morgan French shows the spark of motherhood that comes with being on the verge of bringing another life into the world, while wondering if she is the only true grownup in the room.

Caroline Frawley assistant directs, and Elianah Atwell is stage manager.

Learn how marriage is like a boa constrictor, that “the defining feature of being an adult is not doing what you want,” and to be careful with the U-Haul. Remaining performances of “Grand Horizons” are Friday through Sunday, March 22-24, at Arts For Lawrence’s Theater at the Fort, 8920 Otis Ave. Get info and tickets at hyperionplayers.com or artsforlawrence.org.

NAATC mounts top quality ‘Black Bottom’

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By John Lyle Belden

Decades after its local premiere at the old Phoenix Theatre, August Wilson’s “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” returns on the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Center main stage, presented by Naptown African American Theatre Collective, directed by Edan Evans.

The one play of Wilson’s “Century Cycle” not taking place in Pittsburgh, the setting is a Chicago recording studio in 1927, where the “Mother of the Blues” is set to record some hits before heading back South. Note that while the events are the playwright’s conjecture, inspired by an old recording, Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886-1939) was very real and larger than life.

First to arrive to check the set-up are the studio manager Sturtevant (Patrick Vaughn) and Rainey’s manager Irvin (Scot Greenwell). Soon the musicians arrive: pianist Toledo (Bryan Ball), Cutler (Ben Rose) with his trombone, Slow Drag (John Singleton) with his stand-up bass, and young trumpet player Levee (Xavier Jones), who has ambitions of starting his own band eventually. While they wait for Ma, we get to know them as they rehearse. They’re no-nonsense and used to doing it “Ma’s way,” except for Levee, who even has his own arrangement of the title song.

Finally, Rainey (Alicia Sims) does arrive, accompanied by her nervous nephew Sylvester (Jy’ierre Jones), companion Dussie Mae (Selena Jackson), and a policeman (Doug Powers) whom Irvin has to pacify to ensure the recording session continues. Little else will go smoothly this day, while it is made plain that while this is Sturtevant’s studio, Ma Rainey is in charge.

Much of this play focuses on the men in the band, which was wise of Wilson as keeping such a force of nature as Ma at center stage throughout would have essentially made this a one-woman show. If there is a fiercer adjective than “fierce,” that’s what describes Sims’s performance. By this point a veteran performer and recording artist, Ma knows her worth, is hair-trigger aware of disrespect (especially by white folks), and thus absolutely no one to trifle with. Her sense of Roaring Twenties sexual liberation is unabashed, from her fondling of Dussie Mae to turning the Black Bottom (a dance that at the time rivaled the Charleston in popularity) into a double entendre.

Those playing the band smoothly embody individual quirks. Ball has Toledo wax philosophical in a conversational manner that still gives him the last word. Rose, in his cool Cab Calloway haircut as Cutler, plays it loose, going along to get along, but draws the line when you mock his faith. Singleton also takes it easy as fun-loving Slow Drag (the name gets explained). Xavier Jones plays Levee in all his complexity: brash and bold, yet naive; quick to smile or to anger; boyish looks on a man who has, we discover, dealt with unspeakable pain.

Also notable is Jy’ierre Jones’s portrayal of Sylvester, pushing through nerves and a stutter to give Ma what she needs in one of her most celebrated recordings.

Vaughn’s Sturtevant comes across as a subtle villain, all business and white privilege without overt bad intentions. Though no doubt dealing with “colored” clientele harshly or indifferently has a racial element, his successors throughout recording history will shortchange musicians of all backgrounds. As for our beleaguered white manager Irvin, Greenwell plays him not spineless, but flexible, constantly working the thin line that sets the talent and the money men worlds apart.

Splendid split stage design is by Fei with scenic design by Cole Wilgus and Ky Brooke. Kayla Hill is stage manager.

Witness this speculative look at a great moment in American music history. “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” runs through March 24 at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Center, 705 N. Illinois St., downtown Indianapolis. Tickets at phoenixtheatre.org, or naatcinc.org.

Energetic elders ferret out funny business in CSCT’s ‘Follies’

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By Wendy Carson

Welcome to the Pleasant Valley Retirement Home. It’s a typical Monday morning, but nothing here is quite so simple. Thus begins Lebanon’s Center Stage Community Theater’s production of “Senior Follies” by Billy Wayne St. John. While one might assume from the title that this will be a story involving some sort of show or pageant, that is not at all the case. The “follies” here are of the sensibilities of those involved.

We begin with Mildred Rice (Mary Kay Ferguson) and Sara Jane Dinsmore (Cindy Duncan) casually gossiping while putting together a jigsaw puzzle. One of their main issues is with Howard Phelps (Kevin Van Horn) and his constantly overt flirtations, sometimes ending up with bruises from the pinches. Their friend Bernice Thompson (Janie Lank) has promised to have her husband Douglas (Peter Fowle) have a talk with Howard to set him straight.

Mrs. Rivers (Jada Cannell), director of the facility, has brought two new residents for introductions, Sybil Thackery (Jackae Johnson) and her brother Lowell (Scott Post). Of course, Howard homes in on Sybil and their whirlwind romance begins. Lowell seems to favor Iris Cunningham (Teresa Dittemore) but her overdose of diuretics is playing havoc with their time together.

We quickly find out that the Thackerys are not at all what they seem and have nefarious plans for Howard and Iris. Mildred, Sara Jane, and Bernice are wary of the newcomers and their rapid romancing of their friends. Needless to say, things drama keeps swinging around as often as the two peacocks on the mantle which everyone seems to need to rearrange.

While the plot may seem rather straightforward, the dialogue is where this show truly shines. The quips throughout are absolutely hilarious. My particular favorites were the reference to a couple of the residents skinny dipping in the hot tub as “Rub-a-dub-dub, two nudes in a tub” and Howard’s lack of understanding of why the Thompsons would have a pair of handcuffs in their room.

Director Richelle Lutz does a great job of keeping the drama and the comedy at a tight balance so that the show keeps itself only very slightly self-aware. Being a small theater, makeup and costumes mainly fall to each of the actors, however, whomever came up with the design for Mildred’s makeover in act two should win an award for effects.

John and I thank Lutz for inviting us out to Lebanon to see this on its sold-out closing night. CSCT next presents “An Evening of Culture,” May 3-19 in their cozy confines at 604 Powell St. Get information and tickets at centerstagecommunitytheatre.com or follow on Facebook.

‘Bat in the Wind’ flutters back

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By John Lyle Belden

Write what you know. That’s the universal advice to writers, and some, like novelist Stephen King, turn the muse inward and pen stories about those who pen stories. As a longtime friend (though not as long as some) of playwright Casey Ross, I have seen her blinking cursor return – between indulgences in the silly or geeky – to the shadows of memory and the recrafting of friends made and lost into characters who are new, yet familiar.

She may even agree that the King reference is apt, as he and she both know that it is within the mind where true monsters lie. Bringing those beasties out into the light seemed to be one of the goals of the “Gallery” trilogy she introduced at IndyFringe almost two decades ago. From the start, she presented flawed people with flawed relationships in a way that reminds us that those aspects are baked into the hardware of humanity, not something to be blithely resolved in the third act.

With her most personal work, she lays bare the struggles of a playwright striving to understand their own art in “Bat in the Wind,” which has returned to the IndyFringe Theatre, this time on the more intimate Indy Eleven stage. Last August’s premiere during the 2023 IndyFringe Festival featured a script that was carefully trimmed down to Fringe-show length (under an hour). The updated Catalyst Repertory production, directed by Zachariah Stonerock and clocking in at about an hour and a half (no intermission), is restored, not padded out. Nothing feels extra, and motivations and conversations even gain clarity.

Matt Craft returns as Taylor, a 26-year-old writer who has found himself single, near broke, and suddenly without electricity. This on top of the fact that the prose that should be a brilliant play about the human condition just sits there lifeless on his laptop screen. But before he can attempt to remedy that, he must go next door to his duplex neighbor, Randy (Dane Rogers), a slovenly older man who appears to care about nothing but sustaining his alcoholism. The first thing he says at any conversation is a slurred, “You’re not mad at me, are you?” – in case there was something bad he said or did during a blackout.

The play is subtitled, “A Recent Study on Depression and Addiction,” which at first glance is a reference to poor Randy. However, it’s easy to sniff out your own kind, and in his more lucid moments, he reminds Taylor (and us) that our frustrated wordsmith is an addict as well – and he’s got it bad.

Like a drunk bargaining with his demons, Taylor thinks he has a way of getting his literary high with no danger of personal pain. To write about what he knows, creative folk, he makes the characters in his play photographers, not writers. (This puzzles Randy, but in this writer’s opinion it’s a tactic of distance, the creator always on the safe side of the camera, apart from any action or drama. I note this parenthetically in case Casey tells me I got it wrong.)

Taylor prides himself on being a keen observer, using parts of those he watches to bring truth to his fictional scenes. Randy calls him on treating people like musical instruments, “not everyone likes to be played!” This humbling moment passes, though, and Taylor makes a fragile promise to his “interesting” neighbor. But like a bottle or needle, the muse calls.

All this, in what is technically a dark comedy. Ross’s penchant for dialogue that feels natural yet has every phrase weighted with meaning also generates a surprising number of laughs. Rogers’ no-nonsense deadpan delivery helps immensely, with the real-life absurdity of dealing with someone who’s blotto without comic buffoonery. Randal Leach may be a drunk, but he must be respected.

Craft finds himself the butt of laughter just as often. His constant striving wins our sympathy, despite the fact that he’s morose and manic (the pot and occasional hits of coke don’t help) like someone perpetually treading water, unaware and in fear of how deep in he is. His months-long experience with the role fits him like a second skin.

I must note that, as those with low means tend to indulge in affordable vices, there is a large amount of smoking of lit stage cigarettes in this show. The language – true to Ms. Ross’s style – is as salty as ever.

Also, the ending feels like it lends itself to an unrevealed epilogue, or even a third act. Consider that part being after the lights go up and you are left sitting with your thoughts. Perhaps it’s when you return to see Catalyst’s remounting of “Gallery” this summer. Maybe it’s when you finally sit down to write your next masterpiece, the blinking cursor beckoning like an old habit.

“Bat in the Wind (Or a Recent Study on Depression & Addiction)” has performances March 8-10 and 15-17 at 719 E. St. Clair, Indianapolis. Get tickets at indyfringe.org, more info at catalystrepertory.org or the company Facebook page.

Good examination of ‘Bad Seed’

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By John Lyle Belden

The story that shockingly brought the question of nature vs. nurture in human evil to popular culture, “The Bad Seed,” is brought splendidly to the stage in an adaptation by Indianapolis’s own James Capps, produced and directed by Callie Burk-Hartz for Betty Rage Productions at the downtown Scottish Rite Cathedral.

Time brings a notable perspective to this drama. We, as a society, have learned an incredible amount in the decades since the 1954 novel by William March, which became a play that year and a hit movie in 1956. Since then, especially with the Criminal Minds and Hannibal Lecter books, films and TV series, as well as True Crime shows and podcasts, the average person is at least casually aware of the signs a person is a “born” psychopath or sociopath.

This sense of “if we only knew then what we know now” adds a deeper level of suspense and dread to the Capps play, placed firmly in the Eisenhower era, when the nature of criminality is only starting to be understood. Being born bad is a fringe theory, with juvenile acts chalked up to bad backgrounds. So, of course, 10-year-old Rhoda Penmark (played by 11-year-old Greta Shambarger) couldn’t be anything more than the perfect little girl adults take her to be.

She gets excellent care from doting parents Christine (Christine Zavakos) and Col. Kenneth Penmark (Lukas Schoolar) in their beautiful Tallahassee apartment. Col. Penmark gives Rhoda extra gifts and “baskets of hugs” to compensate for leaving on assignment to the Pentagon. Meanwhile, the girl is off to a school picnic, while Christine hosts lunch for friend and criminologist author Reginald Tasker (Tristin Ross) and landlady and upstairs neighbor Monica Breedlove (Shannon Samson), who is fascinated with Freudian psychotherapy.

The day turns tragic as Rhoda’s classmate Claude Daigle – whom she had been furious at for winning a Penmanship Medal she felt she had deserved – “accidentally” drowns during the school outing. Our girl then blithely skips home and quietly slips something into her keepsake box.

While coldly clever, Rhoda is still only as smart as her age, but goes far on charm, flattery, and, at turns, tantrums. Still, there are suspicions. Her teacher Miss Fern (Alyce Penny) is impressed at her academic prowess but concerned at her inability to get along with peers, or to accept setbacks. The apartment building caretaker Leroy (Austin Hookfin), having a simple yet complex mind of his own, senses her constant deceit, and calls her out on it. Claude’s distraught mother, Mrs. Esther Daigle (Jenni White), is positive there is more than what she’s been told, but her excessive drinking blunts efforts to get at the truth.

Christine increasingly realizes what has been going on, and with the help of her father, former radio star and investigative journalist Richard Bravo (Ronnie Johnstone), digs at a deeper secret.

Performances are nicely delivered with a touch of melodrama appropriate to a 50s film, tension builds as revelations and bodies fall. Zavakos is touching as a devoted mother, afraid the blame could be partly hers, driven to extreme measures. Samson and Ross ably portray the know-it-alls who miss the big clue because they can’t see past the smile and pigtails – a pity they never asked Leroy, who Hookfin plays with a wink to his aw-shucks manner. White brings out the full tragedy of survivorship without support. Johnstone gives a case study on internal conflict, struggling against the inevitable pain to himself and others.

Shambarger, being a gifted young actress, makes you want to not let her near sharp objects until she’s at least in high school. She manages the layered expression of a person without emotion presenting emotion, a caught animal coldly calculating a way out, or a machine-like stare.

The timeless wood-trimmed auditorium of the Scottish Rite compliments the cozy living room set by Christian McKinny. Gigi Jennewein is assistant director; Kallen Ruston is stage manager, assisted by Jamie Rich.

As this is posted, there are performances tonight, Saturday afternoon and evening and Sunday matinee, March 1-3, at the Scottish Rite, 650 N. Meridian (entrance and parking in the back), Indianapolis. Get tickets at bettyrageproductions.com.

IRT presents ‘Folks’ in a comic situation

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By John Lyle Belden

The situation comedy, a/k/a sitcom, is primarily an American invention, and in its many settings often reflects an aspect of the American Dream. But put something that could be made into a TV pilot on a stage with no cameras – just the live audience – and you find that the difference between a “Full House” and “A Raisin in the Sun” becomes little more than the laugh track.

This is the genre-testing approach of R. Eric Thomas’s “The Folks at Home,” in its second-ever production, presented by Indiana Repertory Theatre (its premiere was in Baltimore, where the story is set).

Young married couple Brandon and Roger (Garrett Young and Keith Illidge) are hitting what could be a rough patch. The big house they bought is changing from a wise investment to a burden as Roger has trouble finding a job; still, Brandon has things budgeted so they can stay until they sell the house – which Roger privately doesn’t want to do. Also, the ghost put the mail in the refrigerator again.

While Brandon’s at work, Roger’s parents Pamela and Vernon (Oliva D. Dawson and Sean Blake) arrive, informing him that their house is in foreclosure, and they are going to have to move in. Later, Brandon’s says-whatever’s-in-her-head mother Maureen (Tracy Michelle Arnold) shows up, stating that since she’s between jobs and living situations, her son said she could move in. Then the “maid” Alice (Claire Wilcher) abruptly arrives to clean off the dust and bad vibes.

As they say in the biz, hilarity ensues.

It’s interesting to guess all the possible classic sitcom influences jammed into this play – “Odd Couple,” “All in the Family,” “Jeffersons,” “Roseanne/Conners,” “Ghosts,” “Modern Family,” you name it – but that would be a disservice to Thomas and director Reggie D. White. In this homage to problems that work out in half an hour of wholesome humor, we see what happens when the issues don’t stop when the theme song kicks back in. Just as many teleplays are based on lived experiences in family homes, this fictional family sees things getting real between the quippy one-liners and odd misunderstandings.

Even with the ever-lurking drama, there are some belly-laugh comic moments, including the always-awkward “family meeting,” and the arrival in Act 2 of Wilcher as Brandon’s very pregnant sister Brittany, eager to dispense her “crock-pot” wisdom. The cast give us unique characters that still suggest archetypes – Maureen a bit Archie Bunker, Vernon a bit George Jefferson, Brandon and Roger like pals of Will and Grace – which like those personae keep them relatable to folks we know or people we’ve been. Given more than a half-hour for the plot to play out, it’s like binging a short season’s arc (complete with Intermission for a break) to see how all the storylines resolve. Funny, uplifting, and NOT available on Netflix or any other streaming service. Catch “The Folks at Home” at the IRT, 140 W. Washington St., Indianapolis, through March 16. Get tickets and information at irtlive.com.

‘Crew’ remembers forgotten Civil Rights heroes

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By John Lyle Belden

“Cadillac Crews are not fictional. They really happened. But we don’t know the many names of the women who, on them, helped to integrate the American south.” – Playwright Tori Sampson in an interview on www.newpaltz.edu.

Black women in the 1960s faced a battle on two fronts. They endured the struggle for racial equality alongside Black men, who at times placed them in a strictly background role, mostly unheard and largely unknown.

In the play, “Cadillac Crew,” by Tori Sampson, presented by Mud Creek Players, this becomes a hard lesson for Rachel Christopher (Shakisha Mahogany), leader in a Virginia civil rights activists’ office. She has arranged for movement pioneer Rosa Parks to speak at an upcoming conference. However, her day starts with friction from office assistant Abby (Shanae Denise), who feels she should have more duties, considering her pre-law degree. Rachel notes that even with her Masters, all she has done is administrative work, but that should soon change. Dee (Gabrielle Patterson) arrives already under stress, dealing with her daughter starting class at a mostly-White school under a new Integration plan. Finally, there is Sarah (Rachel Kelso), whose Whiteness raises quiet suspicion with Abby and Dee, despite her eagerness to help and Rachel’s willingness to vouch for her.

Two pieces of bad news arrive – the male leadership’s decision to demote Parks’ appearance from a keynote address to perhaps a luncheon, and a report out of Florida of a burned-out Cadillac with the bodies of two women voting rights workers. No names are given, but Abby knew them.

Striving to rise above not only the pervasive Jim Crow racism but also what we now call “erasure,” Rachel volunteers her office as the next Cadillac Crew. Such teams are similar to the Freedom Riders of volunteer college students who traveled into the Deep South to organize and register voters (sometimes with tragic results), but in this case more low-key, driving the back roads to speak to churches and women’s groups to encourage the causes of integration, voting rights and other freedoms.

Seeing the lack of writing on the wall, Rachel is determined not to be forgotten, insisting that she and the others keep diaries of their ramblings through the South. Her lofty speeches seem to be well received, and things are going well, provided the crew can make it over the dusty road to Jackson, Mississippi…

Directed by Dani Lopez-Roque, this play is a powerful reminder of the many mostly-unknown people who worked for the cause of freedom, and how the pressures of that struggle led to a lot of tension and disagreement within the ranks. This isn’t four girls on a road trip; it is four women constantly questioning if any of this is worth it. All four actors are as dedicated as the women they portray, embracing the complexity that even within a settled goal like equality, there are many-sided arguments of how to get there.

The play ends with a final scene in 2024, which seems a little odd, but helps put the preceding events in perspective as a young podcaster strives to un-erase what has been hidden.

The Mud Creek Barn helps set the scene before the play with signage as you enter regarding the strictures of Jim Crow. The program is in the style of newspaper from 1963. And be sure you line up at the “right” window when getting your ticket or popcorn.

Performances of “Cadillac Crew” are Feb. 16-18 and 23-24 at 9740 E. 86th St., Indianapolis. For tickets and info, go to mudcreekplayers.org.

‘Lost’ in Simon’s wartime family drama

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By John Lyle Belden

You see a dozen shows by Neil Simon, you think you’d know what to expect – the farce of Rumors; or goofy relationships of The Odd Couple; or sweet (and a bit bitter) memories of Brighton Beach; or hilarious razor wit of Goodbye Girl.

For those unfamiliar with “Lost in Yonkers,” Simon’s 1990 Pulitzer-winning play presented by Main Street Productions in Westfield, note that many of his comedies’ hallmarks are present, but with a dark edge that is too real to completely laugh away. With the sharp rap of Grandma’s cane, wisecracks cease. The exaggerated aspects of characters come not in caricature but from coping with lifelong trauma.

In 1942 (America’s first full year in World War II) Eddie Kurnitz (Matt McKee) has to settle debts from his wife’s fatal battle with cancer, so takes a traveling job gathering scrap metal for the War effort. Thus he leaves his sons, 15 “and a half” Jay (Drake Lockwood) and 13 “and a half” Arty (Finley Eyers) with his mother in Yonkers (just outside New York City). Grandma Kurnitz (Lisa Warner Lowe), who escaped from Germany years ago to raise Eddie and his siblings in as strict and unsentimental a manner as possible to prepare them for what she sees as an unrelentless cruel world, is unpleased with his plan, but tolerates it at the request of Bella (Becca Bartley), her daughter whose ever-diverting mind stays in a childlike state.

Grandma owns and runs the candy store on the first floor of their building, which ironically becomes hell for the boys who find themselves penalized for every morsel that goes missing, whether it was their doing or not.

Meanwhile, Eddie’s brother Louie (Thom Johnson) shows up, with a wary eye out the window. He’s a bag man for shady characters who now want what he’s secreted in the bag. Gangsters being cool to teen boys, as well as the desire for cash to get his father out of debt and back home, Jay and Arty try to win his favor.

We also meet Aunt Gert (Maggie Meier), who has an unintentionally comical respiratory issue, when Bella gathers the family for what could be a momentous announcement if she can string the thoughts together.

Dark comedy derives a lot of chuckles from situational humor, and Simon serves that well here, but we are more drawn in by the layered drama of a family whose dysfunction runs deep, apt for one of the most stressful eras for any American. There is a method to the matriarch’s cruelty, and grudging admission of benefit, but it’s still difficult to justify. The damage is plain in every one of Grandma’s offspring, but especially Bella, as Bartley gives a brilliantly endearing and heartbreaking performance. Lowe, for her part, delivers both the cold exterior and fire within that keeps Grandma both feared and respected, with fleeting moments of wry German humor that keep us all off-balance. With Uncle Louie, Johnson maintains an air of Cagney-cool with just a touch of paranoia in knowing his gangland adventure ain’t a movie. Lockwood and Eyers keep the youths as smart-alecky and immature as you’d expect, but, as kids do, learning to adapt to their situation.

Jen Otterman directs, with assistance from stage manager Monya Wolf. The comfy but no-frills living-room set is by Ian Marshall-Fisher.

Get “Lost in Yonkers” this Thursday through Sunday, Feb. 14-18, at Basile Wesfield Playhouse, 220 N. Union St., Westfield. For an extra treat, concessions include versions of “Kurnitz Kandies” with proceeds benefiting MSP’s scholarship program. Get tickets and information at WestfieldPlayhouse.org.