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By Leigh E. Rich
Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 12, 1996
Life is like a bad wedding.
The preparations are interminable, negotiations between parties are draining, and infinitesimal decisions can escalate into international skirmishes - all of which cumulates into one, fleeting joyous occasion comprised of acquaintances loitering about in pinching shoes and gaudy outfits priced just beyond realistic financial means.
While everyone struggles to keep a tight lid on personal opinions, most leave a little heavier, a touch lonelier, and perhaps a bit tanked-up.
Within this cynical view of an enduring cultural tradition, however, playwright Alan Ball manages to find a lot of laughs and a little insight in his "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress," a play about marriage, love, sex and intimacy told from the bridal party sidelines.
Wrapping up its final weekend through the Borderlands Theater, "Five Women" is set in the Southern clime of Knoxville, Tenn. - chock full of debutantes, religious zeal, Southern comfort, and unchanging intolerance.
Ball intentionally throws together five women who couldn't be more different than they are similar.
Virginal Frances (Aleta Palmer) struggles to maintain her Christian values as she hides away from her cousin's wedding reception with irate idealist Meredith (Sara Eileen LaWall), the buxom and bawdy Trisha (Caroline Reed), a midlife-fearing debutante (Suzi List), and a neurotic-klutz-lesbian (Elizabeth Heichelbach).
A play both written and directed by men, Ball's bridesmaids are anything but the typical caricature of caddy women. While the dresses are as flattering as a Don King hairdo, these women are draped in a realistic softness. Ball addresses the issues of today - not in an overtly preaching fashion, but rather with comedic and uncivilized sensitivity.
Ball is able to explore, through this Twain-esque style, a feminine take on men, age, AIDS, sex, marriage, love, and sexuality.
He manages to deconstruct traditional sacrosanct institutions ("a wedding is like a sacrifice"), condemn religious intolerance, and reflect on modern American "culture." In essence, Ball reeks of an anthropologist and, because of it, is able to make light of as well as provide insight into our daily struggles as sexual and gregarious creatures.
Of course, this play is not for the estrogen-weary. The bridesmaids' gathering resonates most female conversations: they are 90 percent about men. As one chiffon-laden lass asks the other, "Why are men so stupid?" The answer, "Because they're allowed to be."
But Ball's dialogue is not all about cultivating that inner bitch. He delves beneath the surface in an attempt to understand Woman from his male perspective. The women, like most, search for something other than what they've already found - all flash and no substance. As Georgeanne poignantly puts it, "I've never met a man who looked at me and saw more than his own ego."
Most importantly, however, "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress" indulges in a dialogue about friendship and intimacy, accepting one another despite differences and supporting one another in times of need.
Ball's remarkably well-devised modern comedy is really his twisted take on stability and loneliness. The former we all crave; the latter we all have.
Perhaps it is a human condition to fear waking up one day and realizing your life hasn't necessarily been all that you hoped it would be - a particularly keen and simple insight expounded upon by women garbed in questionable duds.
On a more optimistic side, however, Ball convinces us that some things in life are gifts. Ball's "Five Women" is one of them. Guaranteed you'll be in stitches by the time this wedding reception is over.
"Five Women Wearing the Same Dress" by Alan Ball and presented by Borderlands Theater has continued its run in the PCC West Black Box Theatre through Sept. 15. Call 884-6988 for tickets and information.
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