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Post-Standard, The (Syracuse,
NY)
May 11, 1999
Section: CNY
Edition: Final
Page: C4
Column: Joan Vadeboncoeur
'JIMMY DEAN' TOUCHINGLY DONE
BY APPLESEED Joan Vadeboncoeur, Entertainment
Columnist
Appleseed Productions winds
up its season with a whoppingly entertaining, ultimately touching work,
"Come Back to
the Five & Dime, Jimmy
Dean, Jimmy Dean." Ed Graczyk's play is replete
with humor, pathos and terrific characters as its unfurls its tale of the
20th anniversary
meeting since the film star's
death of "The Disciples of James Dean." The club's members gather in the
five and dime
store of a dusty, almost
forgotten Texas town, where its stellar member is Mona, a woman who claims
to have
mothered Dean's only son
following a one-night affair in the moonlight. The lives of the few remaining
people in McCarthy,
Texas, are as false as the
front of the mansion that loomed in "Giant." Each keeps a secret that will
be exposed before
the end. Store operator and widow
Juanita espouses Christian charity and dubs anyone who doesn't fall into
line as "a
communist." Sissy's husband
is a wildcatter who's been away for years in the oil fields while she dreams
of becoming
a star in the Ice Capades.
Stella May has married money but hasn't lost her raucous, bossy ways. Mousy
Edna Louise
is near to birthing her
seventh child. She's ready to acquiesce on any score to keep peace. Joanne
drives a Porsche
into town and shocks the
club members with her appearance. Graczyk integrates the younger
selves of Mona and Sissy, plus a strange town youth, Joe. For a while the
younger
persons and the older remain
in traditional flashbacks. Gradually they weave into the fabric of their
older selves until
sometimes old and young
speak in unison. This tricky maneuver has been adroitly handled by Linda
Lance, whose
direction also is zestful. She has assembled a cast
that plays with relish and sympathy. Notable are Therese Constantine as
the flamboyant
Sissy, Roseanne Fortino
as the wealthy wife with cowgirl airs and Anne Sermon as Joanne. As the
anchor character,
dreamer Mona, Sue Mahlstedt
has many telling moments yet hasn't fully fleshed out her role. Scene-stealing
work
comes from Tina Putrelo
as Edna Louise and Lois Haas as Juanita.
Copyright (c) 1999 The Herald Company |
