CRITICS PICK in Backstage West

BACKSTAGE WEST

September 17, 2008
By Travis Michael Holder
There's a lot of talk these days about what it means to be an American. But at the root of the issue, there is more to that distinction than political rhetoric and a newly famous hockey mom. If you'd like to get at look at the kind of strength and stoicism that made our country sturdy before those in power realized how easy a people we are to fool, there's a better outlet these days than tuning in to CNN. Tom Jacobson has paid exemplary homage to real-life American heroes from a less jaded period in our history, using transcripts of minutes from a rural South Dakotan women's club that gathered monthly from 1934 through 2004, when the last two survivors begin to fade.

As with other of Jacobson's plays (Bunbury, Sperm, Ouroboros), the playwright assigns himself intricate narrative challenges that would have sent Williams back to the loony bin, giving his characters a penchant for talking excitedly over one another — that is, when not giving someone the cold shoulder for some perceived societal faux pas. Under the direction of Mark Bringelson, who keeps his actors constantly on the move even when Jacobson's dialogue is as economical as the down-to-earth lives of these ladies, the ensemble of five is remarkable. Ann Noble is the anchor as Dorcus Briggle, a bursting freethinker who fights at every turn with the stiff-backed Effie Voss (Kate Mines), while Opal Zweifel and Wava Jamtgaard (Deana Barone and Mara Marini) struggle to keep peace. And Bettina Zacar, playing about a dozen women who weave in and out of the circle, demonstrates an uncanny ability to switch from one elaborate character to another in amazingly quick changes.

These powerful Midwestern survivors are the stoic Americans to celebrate and honor, something Jacobson has accomplished with his lyrical, sweetly bucolic text. Although the narrowed eyes of these fiercely local lifelong friends might be just as revealing as the telltale looks from any current political candidate, their resolve to get through their often exigent small-town lives despite the odds is infinitely more sincere than anyone we're asked to accept into our trust today.