The program notes for Millbrook's production of The Hallelujah Girls lists several of their veteran comic actresses in the cast, so audience expectations were high for what was to become yet another delightful encounter with them.
The play -- one of a small cottage industry by playwrights Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten -- relies on an improbably silly plot through which the assorted archetypical "girls" demonstrate their individual quirks while [in response to another friend's death] they transform a redundant church into the SPA--DEE--DAH salon...and with many economic, social, political, and romantic entanglements that need to be remedied, the two acts entertain as things get twisted out of proportion.
Director Cheryl Phillips trusts her fine ensemble cast [Jamie Brown, Karla McGhee, Pat McClellan, Vicki Moses, Steve Phillips, Terry Quotes, Tracey Quotes, Margaret White] to deliver the goods; and though the staging is relatively static and scene changes take too long, the acting company inhabit their characters and land their witty dialogue with confidence.
We know these people; they walk amongst us...and Millbrook's Hallelujah Girls are so truthful that we applaud the result...a good old-fashioned entertaining evening of theatre.
