Boston Globe, Wednesday, September 19, 2001

Right mix of grief, humor serves to intoxicate

By Ryan McKittrick, Globe Correspondent

In "Laundry & Bourbon" and "Lone Star," James McLure's companion plays, the distraught characters seek solace in conversation and inebriation. As these troubled Texans search for an end to their suffering in the sticky remains of a bourbon and coke or in the frothy dregs of a Lone Star beer, their accented laments take on a lyrical quality, swinging back and forth between anguish and relief . With this drunken gregariousness, the playwright attempts to script a kind of rural tragicomedy, filtering his characters' grief through comic, vernacular dialogue.

Although neither of the plays is a tragicomic masterpiece, the performances m the Stanley B Theatre ensemble production are superb.

In "Laundry & Bourbon," the monotony of Elizabeth's day breaks when her loquacious friend Hattie pops in for a visit. Cherishing these stolen moments away from her miscreant children, Hattie indulges in drink while she helps Elizabeth fold laundry. A charming chatterbox who gives this play its comic momentum, Hattie rattles away while Elizabeth maintains, a kind of numb stoicism, her unflinching exterior an obvious cover for her internal torment. After sustained prying, Hattie coaxes Elizabeth into revealing the source of her distress: Roy, Elizabeth's husband, took off in his 1959 pink Thunderbird two days before, without a word.

In "Lone Star," McLure shows this wayward husband in his full glory, singing the praises of his Lone Star state as he guzzles bottle after bottle of its namesake beer. A Vietnam vet, Roy returned to his hometown two years earlier, determined to resume his prewar routines. But even the comfort of junk food and beer leaves Roy incomplete. Immobilized by the horrors of the war. Roy complains (hat he "can't get anything started" since he returned. And when his little brother. Ray, lets Roy know that his Thunderbird has been totaled, the aimless vet, even in his nauseated state of drunkenness, eventually recognizes the futility of recapturing the past.

McLure sprinkles one-liners and short comic scenarios throughout the plays, suggesting that laughter and companionship can ease, if not remedy, suffering. The obviousness of many of these jokes adds to the overall emotional, intellectual, and structural superficiality of the plays, but McLure does resist contrived, tidy resolutions. Neither Roy nor Elizabeth is completely purged of grief. Both plays suggest that accepting the persistence of emotional distress can be a means of coping with that pain,

Tori Davis plays Elizabeth with a monotone desperation that works in counterpoint to Rebecca Mobley's inexhaustible, almost musical portrayal of Hattie. Bruce Serafin brings a concentrated aggression to Roy, revealing the character's nightly intoxication as a vicious project toward self-destruction. And Tom Lawlor, as Roy's younger brother, Ray, brings a palpable tenderness to his role. The detail in Lawlor's outstanding performance is stunning.

Each play also features smaller, somewhat unnecessary parts that the Stanley B actors manage to make memorable. Katherine E. Ball Bassick, as Amy Lee, the local gossipmonger whose position as the chair of the country club makes her a high-ranking member of this small-town aristocracy, wears the thinnest veneer of friendliness in "Laundry & Bourbon," And Michael Layne, as the local goober, Cletis, provides a striking contrast to Roy's ruffian behavior in "Lone Star."

Director Jonathan English has elevated this production above the script by helping the actors achieve a detailed sense of character and by fine-tuning every aspect of their relationships. The intimate brick studio in the basement of the Bates Arts Center is the perfect space for these plays and this troupe. Although the scripts themselves lack depth, the ensemble's dedication to, and belief in, its work makes for an engaging experience in the simplest of spaces.

This story ran on page C6 of the Boston Globe on 9/19/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company