Columbia College invites you to a wedding. A garden wedding, especially the garden of a Savannah mansion in May sounds like a great place to start the rest of your life together, Yes? No. Not when the wedding guests have been written by famous playwright Beth Henley. Many of Henley’s most famous works are known for putting a silly spin on the Old South's “oh how I suffered” sensibilities, the likelihood of that wedding having no problems, is impossible. After reading are program we know right away that Henley picked the names of the bride-to-be and her sister and mother that are clearly prudent of a warm lazy Southern day and metaphor: Floral Kingsley(Lucy Hancock) is the “circus tent” with life inside sister of the bride. The mother is Kandall (as in maintaining the candle of Southern decorum) Kingsley(Laura Korn). And Pandora Kingsley is the younger sister whose impossibly unsuitable marriage plans set off an array of revelations and complications. I’m sure I don’t need to get into what the symbolism is behind Pandora.
How the play ends is not consistently surprising, nor convincing or much deeper than the fake painted stream running through the. However, the family works well together on stage. They engender enough laughter and warmth to make their oddball characters thoroughly likeable and to make us glad we came to this wedding.
To round out the cast of oddball Southern charmers, we also have a few men with enough quirks to match the women:
Chekhov, is clearly present in the play's father and son characters. The dirty middle aged groom to be, Edvard Lunt(Jack Winslow), and his emotional mess of an oldest of eight sons, Sidney (Andrew Nowvack). This son, whom his father fails to recognize, has arrived at the prenuptials to deliver a letter from his mother declaring that she will kill herself if the wedding takes place. Edvard is more than a little upset by the troubled news, but more by its miserable penmanship than its contents.
All these characters talk in language that sounds more like they are reading from different books than speaking to one another, a fact underscored by their tendency to talk facing the audience more than each other, thanks to director Ceile O’Reilly. Some of this talk borders on the artificial and the face-front delivery doesn't help to establish a strong sense of real engagement between audience and actors.
If you can accept a cluster of ugly toadstools on a gorgeously perfect lawn, as does the not quite as proper as she seems Mrs. Kingsley, then your welcome to attend Columbia College’s spring wedding event. It's impossible to call it the best thing Columbia has put on, but it's quite possibly that it's one of the more enjoyable shows in a while. Just go for the laughs and stay for the fun.
