Belles Are Ringing Each Other At The Ghent Playhouse

It’s not easy growing up in Memphis with five sisters, a phobic mom and a homicidal dad. Still, the Walker girls, all six, survived, and all but one are scattered around the country, grown-up, functioning, in their own way. And bruised.

   The all but one is Peggy (Sally Dodge), the central character in Mark Dunn’s “Belles: A play in two acts or 45 phone calls.†She is recently widowed and taking care of mom, also a widow now, back in Memphis.

   This is the perfect piece for a community playhouse with ties to good actors, a good director and a good set designer. Ghent Playhouse has all that. Director Nancy Wilder keeps a fast pace with tight cues and good moves. And the designer, Tom Detwiler, has built a single set divided into distinctive sections for each sister to phone from.   

   The ladies are, mostly, eccentric, which is fine because there’s not much plot here. Just phone calls. And answering machines. This is a play about change, though, transformation, growth. Audrey ( Eileen Johnson) is a ventriloquist seeking a club date, and distractedly connects callers to her dummy; another, Dust ( Denise Rubio), sleeps around and tells strangers and intimates alike her lengthy, disturbed dreams; Roseanne (Cathy Lee-Visscher) is married to a minister who has run away from home; Aneece (Jackie DeGeorgis) drinks great quantities of Grey Goose vodka while maintaining a world of hurt and a remunerative job in commercial real estate; and Paige (Leanne Wilensky), a graduate student, sheds all boyfriends after a single date. As Dust asks her: “Who are you waiting for?  Jesus doesn’t date.â€

   This is a carefully constructed play with plenty of theatrics and a satisfying, if faintly fantastic, finish.

   In Mark Dunn’s world, sisters survive. They could even get together for Thanksgiving. Maybe.

“Belles†plays at The Ghent Playhouse weekends through Oct. 25.For tickets, call 518-392-6264, or go to www.ghentplayhouse.org.

 

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