Review: MAD MEN Meets DALLAS in THE OLD FRIENDS at Open Stage

Horton Foote, like a number of other classic American playwrights, isn't well known to a younger generation of theatergoers, though he should be. If you saw TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, you saw his adaptation of the novel. If you saw TENDER MERCIES, you've seen his work. And there was THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL. But he was at his best, it seems, in observing the foibles of his home state, Texas, and in documenting, as if under a microscope, the all-too-human behavior of its small-town residents.

Harrison, a small but growing town not all that far from the city, is the setting of Foote's THE OLD FRIENDS, a not-quite scathing look at people who knew each other when, are related to them by various marriages, and who can't quite bring themselves to be civil to each other yet - and those are people who are friends. God help their enemies, or perhaps they're lucky enough to be ignored, bless their hearts. It's on right now at Open Stage of Harrisburg, where it's sizzling on the stage, and not just because the weather's hot.

Lisa Hayward and Dan Burke are the unhappily married Julia and Albert Price, with whom resides Julia's mother Mamie (Ann E. Rhoads). They all communicate best, as does everyone in this 1960's suburb, over cocktails, as the last thing any of them is would be unsophisticated or poor. They're sixties posh, they're wealthy, sophisticated, and miserable. Albert is unhappy with Julia, Mamie in particular, and, well, life. Julia is unhappy with Albert and decidedly interested in the young Tom Underwood (Phillip Narsh), with whom she's entertaining an affair but swears it hasn't gotten there yet - and it won't if his oft-mentioned mama has anything to do with it. Nor will it if Gertrude Hayhurst Sylvester Ratliff (Anne Alsedek, over the top in the most amusing way possible, even though Gertrude's devices aren't the least bit funny) has anything to say - and she says plenty, whenever she wishes. She's the petty tyrant of Harrison, and she likes it that way. She also likes her late husband's brother, Howard (a stellar Mark Douglas Cuddy), who is in love with the newly returning Sybil (Kelli Kauterman, in some fine work). Sybil's husband Hugo - Julia's brother - has just died, and she's visiting Julia and Mamie, rekindling sparks with Howard over Gertrude's dead body, and trying to rebuild her life.

If all of this sounds like the makings of a three-ring circus, it's certainly the makings of black comedy meeting near-tragedy. It's alcohol-fueled suburbia, a bit of MAD MEN meets DALLAS in the swinging Sixties, with the Texan addition of ranches, pecan trees and guns. Lust, at least attempted adultery, revenge, outright bitchiness, are all there. At the center of it all, unmoving, is Sybil, once her flight arrives, as she, unknowing, becomes the catalyst for everyone else's bad behavior. Fortunately, since Foote is one of our great playwrights, Sybil is no gossamer saint placed against the whirl of bad children; she's as human as anyone. But she's also too intelligent, or possibly too sober, to let everyone's shared past drag her down into the vortex, of which Gertrude's the center - just as Gertrude insists on being the center of everything around her.

For all that the connections, the pent-up memories and anger, and alcohol are clearly going to lead to some kind of disaster, everything isn't quite as predictable as one might anticipate, the dialogue is crisp and apt, and the one-liners, especially Gertrude's, are darkly amusing. Speaking of Gertrude, Anne Alsedek is clearly having more fun than should be allowed playing one of the great... er... witches... of the American stage. You'll probably have just as much fun watching her.

MAD MEN meets DALLAS, and the result is glorious, terrifying chaos. Be amazed. Be very amazed. At Open Stage through May 1. Visit openstagehbg.com for tickets and information.

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