Review: THE COVER OF LIFE at Mask & Mirror

If you're looking for a reason to support local theater this season, let this be it. Mask and Mirrors' production of The Cover of Life, directed by Stan Yeend, is a warm, moving, at times tragic, and often funny night out. It deserves the full house it had on opening night.

Tood, Weetsie, and Sybil are newly married young women in rural Louisiana in 1943, each married to one of the Cliffert brothers. With the men off at war, a local news story by small-town reporter Addie Mae, about how these young women are coping, catches the eye of magazine publisher Henry Luce, who decides they belong on the cover of Life magazine and assigns the story to reporter Kate Miller. Kate has high aspirations for her career and sees this "women's piece" as a setback, but she takes it anyway because it will be her first cover story. What follows is a week with the Cliffert women that slowly cracks open Kate's haughty urban armor, as she comes to deeply understand them and is forced to confront her own position and worth in a man's world.

Playwright R.T. Robinson drew on his own family for this story, having grown up surrounded by the strong women in his mother's life. He's said that great Southern writers tend to come from families full of opinionated women, and it shows. This script has real warmth and specificity to it. It's worth contemplating, though, that this is a story about women's inner lives written by a man who observed and admired them from the outside, rather than by the women themselves. That doesn't make the writing any less engaging, but it's an interesting lens to watch the play through, wondering what these same women might have written about themselves and each other.

Under Stan Yeend's direction, the cast finds both the comedy and the deep heartache in this story, and the ensemble work is a real strength. Savannah Wakeman anchors the show as Tood, giving her a grounded, quiet strength that attempts to hold the other women together while she searches for her own meaning in life. Katie Souza's Weetsie is a delight. She is sharp-tongued and funny, with a real vulnerability underneath that sneaks up on the audience. Orion Corinne brings Sybil's brittle cheerfulness to life and handles the character's emotional unraveling with authenticity. Francine Raften has the tricky job of making Kate's transformation from prickly outsider to sympathetic witness feel earned, and she does it well, letting the character's own heartbreak surface alongside her career ambitions. Laura Reeves is a warm, wise presence as Aunt Ola, adding humor and heart every time she's on stage. In her scene with Kate, Reeves and Raften beautifully capture the clash between feminism and the complex survival strategies these women rely on. Janell Herman brings lovely energy to Addie Mae, and Joshua King rounds out the cast as Tommy, adding a welcome bit of levity to the world these women inhabit.

The whole production has a lovingly handmade feel to it. The set and lighting reflect real care in every choice under Yeend's direction, and it pays off in a story that sneaks up on you emotionally by the end.

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