'Sugar Bean Sisters' sweet, not snappy
By Jana J. Monji 10/23/2008
Nathan Sanders’ “The Sugar Bean Sisters” was originally produced in 1995 and the current production at the Sierra Madre Playhouse has some bright moments, but they aren’t enough to sustain an audience for a full evening.
Faye (Pattie Tierce) and Willie Mae (Marcia deRousse) Nettles are spinster sisters who have become Mormon because out in the Buster Swamp in Sugar Bean, Florida, the Mormon missionaries got to them before the Seventh Day Adventists. It doesn’t hurt that the current Mormon Bishop, Crumley (Nathan Cambridge), is a much younger man with whom Willie Mae is infatuated. When Willie Mae changes her clothes to accompany him to comfort a neighbor, Willie Mae’s none-too-subtle attire is one of the evening’s bright spots. The Nettles are visited by a mysterious and gaudily dressed Videllia Sparks (Karen Kahler) who may actually be after Willie Mae’s “Grapefruit fortune,” a settlement from an industrial accident. Faye, who has cared for her sister, has recently become famous—she was on the cover of Weekly World News because she claims aliens visited her 20 years ago and she believes they will return for her. There is also a Reptile Woman (Terry Savior) and her spawn (Laci Greenfield-Sosa and Leslie Ezeh) because one of the dangers of the swamp is its poisonous critters.
The spawn sisters, both younger than the rest of the women in the cast and attired in tight-fitting garments, are more of a distraction and seem out of place. There aren’t quite enough sparks flying between deRousse and Tierce during their bickering and the pace could be tightened. Yet Cambridge’s beatific Crumley glows with a slightly loopy light.
Under the direction of Kirk White, this production lacks the snappy timing that might enliven this material and, despite the lunacy that the subject matter warrants, never pushes the cast into the realm of the absurd, allowing reality to tether this production too solidly to the ground.
“The Sugar Bean Sisters” continues to Nov. 15 at the Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. For more information, call (626) 256-3809 or visit www.sierramadreplayhouse.org.
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