‘Church Basement Ladies’ has plenty of laughs

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Charles Whaley

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August 12, 2011

‘Church Basement Ladies’ has plenty of laughs

By CHARLES WHALEY newsroom@newsandtribune.com The News and Tribune Fri Aug 12, 2011, 09:39 AM EDT

> SOUTHERN INDIANA — CLARKSVILLE — Derby Dinner Playhouse is pulling back the curtain on the wild, crazy and hugely sentimental Lutheran women known as “Church Basement Ladies.” They’re the ones who prepare and serve the meals at weddings, funerals and whatever else is scheduled.

In this boisterous musical treatment these supposedly unsung kitchen heroines also sing, dance, and show some skin to the embarrassment of Pastor E. L. Gunderson (a harried Cary Wiger) at Minnesota’s Cornucopia Lutheran Church of the Prairie.

There’s hardly a subtle moment in this joke-heavy look at food and customs of Minnesota Norwegians. The four lovable kooks who rule over their basement domain (associate producer Lee Buckholz’s set looks like the real thing) use “The Joy of Butter” as their cookbook.

Sporting wigs that don’t flatter them as they cavort through plotless episodes and gamely play their one-note roles are Rita Thomas as elderly, bossy Vivian; Janet Essenpreis as second-in-command Karin; Michelle Johnson as Karin’s daughter Signe, a University of Minnesota student whose wedding jitters are spotlighted in a final scene, and Tina Jo Wallace as Mavis, a fearlessly funny fount of family histories in thrall to menopausal hot flashes.

Wallace’s hilarious physical comedy is the show’s deservedly applauded highlight as she climbs in and out (twice!) of a freezer chest or exposes her underwear to the horrified minister while fanning herself with her skirt.

Minnesotans Jim Stowell and Jessica Zuehlke co-wrote the show with music and lyrics by Drew Jansen. It’s a serviceable score that doesn’t stick in the memory, though a couple of tunes — ”My Own Personal Island” (a menopause ditty for Mavis) and “The Cities” (Mavis, Karin, and Vivian trash the ways of St. Paul and Minneapolis, “the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Prairie”) provide kicks. The painfully maudlin “Song for Willie” (an unseen church janitor who dies) ought to be cut.

Directed and produced by Bekki Jo Schneider, “Church Basement Ladies” was inspired by the books of Janet Letnes Martin and Suzann Nelson, including the best seller “Growing Up Lutheran.”

In the play and program you learn about lutefisk (dried cod soaked in lye until it bloats to twice its original size, then is rinsed to remove lye and gets boiled on the stove). This is generally served at Christmas. Rommegrot, another delicacy, is a pudding made from sour cream, milk, and flour and cooked until it “burps back at you.” It’s served covered with melted butter.

“Church Basement Ladies” runs through Sept. 25. For tickets and information call 812-288-8281, toll free 877-898-8577, or www.derbydinner.com.