Disclosure: The reviewer is a member of the Board of Directors of the Cloverdale Playhouse.
The Cloverdale Playhouse continues its 2015 season with director Greg Thornton's sensitive production of Georgia novelist and playwright Carson McCullers' The Member of the Wedding. More than the simple coming-of-age story of 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams [Rita Pearson-Daley], McCullers investigates race relations, the impact of war on everyday people, and the need for love and belonging in a bewildering society.
Set in the Summer in the mid-1940s [the kitchen and backyard of Frankie's house is given an authentic if Spartan look by Layne Holley and Joe Collins] and populated chiefly by Frankie, her family's "colored" maid Berenice Sadie Brown [Yvette Jones-Smedley], and her younger cousin John Henry West [Charlie Hill], the action takes place in just a few days as preparations are being made for the wedding of Frankie's brother Jarvis [Kodi Robertson] to Janice [Bailey Johnson].
Very much an outsider who senses the lack of warmth of her widowed father Mr. Addams [Buddy Rousso] and resents the exclusion of the neighborhood children, Frankie wants adventure in her life and determines to escape the boredom at home by accompanying Jarvis and Janice on their honeymoon.
Mr. Thornton has cast veteran and neophyte actors from around the Montgomery community, including several school and university students, to create an ensemble to bring to life these complex characters. And while the supporting roles including John Henry's mother Mrs. West [Sarah Worley], Berenice's current boyfriend T. T. Williams [Greg Faulkner] and his "no-account" friend and Berenice's relative Honey Camden Brown [Jeffrey Sean Lewis] provide some insights into social and political issues of the day, the focus is largely on the threesome -- Frankie, Berenice, John Henry -- and the production is at its best when they talk, argue, play cards, and share meals in the kitchen.
Indeed, the comfort with each other that these three exhibit gives remarkable credibility to their very ordinary conversations. -- The often married Berenice becomes Frankie's sounding-board and surrogate mother; Ms. Jones-Smedley gives a frank and honest interpretation to the dialogue that makes us feel as Frankie does that she is the most trusted member of the "family" they have created. Young Mr. Hill inhabits John Henry's naively perceptive and uninhibited nature to the fullest. And Ms. Pearson-Daley's Frankie is a constant bundle of contradictions that are completely recognizable adolescent traits. And each of them is somehow yearning for love and acceptance, though they have difficulty in expressing these needs.
As Frankie matures throughout the play's two-and-a-half hours [she doesn't get to go on her brother's honeymoon despite her belief that she would be welcome], she questions Berenice, John Henry, and herself about love and relationships, the racial divide, and the consequences of war, and with Berenice's sage advice begins to move on.
