CLARKSVILLE —
“No men, no kids, no work” — those are the rules that five Southern women who bonded as college swim team members observe resolutely when they gather every August at a North Carolina beach cottage in Derby Dinner Playhouse’s “The Dixie Swim Club.”
Producing director Bekki Jo Schneider and her gloriously effective quintet of actors pull out all the stops in their revival of this highly popular valentine to women that opens the theatre’s 38th season.
Vigorously comic and yet heartfelt in its quieter moments, the play tracks the women through life’s ups-and-downs as they age from 22 years after graduation, when they’re 44, until they’re 77 and one of them has died.
Janet Essenpreis is the steadfastly organized team captain while Rita Thomas, a never married corporate lawyer, drinks too much. Childless and much married and divorced, Jill Kelly is the beauty terrified of getting old.
Michelle Johnson is a nun who left the convent to have a child through artificial insemination. Tina Jo Wallace, with her droll and hugely funny comments, is an accident-prone schoolteacher with a cloddish husband and disappointing children who disappear or end up in jail.
Always on the prowl for the next husband, Kelly’s vain character is the butt of frequent jokes from her friends. As Wallace remarks of the woman’s latest divorce after three years of marriage, “That’s kind of your limit.”
To the never married corporate lawyer, Kelly’s character opines, “A good man is hard to find. Now even the mediocre ones are getting scarce.”
Disagreements and cutting remarks get resolved with group hugs and reminders that “the faster we swim the quicker we win,” their swim coach’s mantra.
Sharon Murray Harrah’s character-defining costumes along with wigs by Jill Higginbotham that pinpoint changing years enhance the enjoyment of this poignant crowd-pleaser by playwrights Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten.
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IF YOU GO
• “The Dixie Swim Club” runs through July 1 at Derby Dinner Playhouse. For tickets and information, call 812-288-8281, toll free 877-898-8577, or www.derbydinner.com
Lifestyles
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Charles Whaley
Discussion
‘Swim Club’ a great opener to Derby Dinner’s season
Play tracks the aging of five Southern women
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