SOUTHERN COMFORTS: IF YOU LIKE THIS KIND OF THING, YOU’LL LOVE THIS
By Greggory Moore
Here’s an assignment, class: Write a 90-minute script about a widowed man and woman who meet late in life and fall in love. Have the two meet in the man’s New Jersey hometown, and have the woman eventually be willing to move from the South to be with him. Your motivation? You’re trying to make the script tickle the funny bone and tug on the heartstrings somewhere in the neighborhood of the lowest common denominator.
You earn an “A” if you deliver something like Southern Comforts. But don’t be confused: that’s a good grade for creating an uninspired project.
This may be the shortest review I’ve ever written, because there just isn’t much to this play. A two-person show, for 90 minutes we watch buttoned-up, set-in-his-ways Gus (Granville Van Dusen) and still-feisty Southern belle Amanda (Michael Learned) navigate their before-it’s-too-late coming together. The humor is predictable, the conflict (such as it is) is predictable, the plot arc is predictable.
On occasion, playwright Kathleen Clark seems to hint at incorporating an idea that is more than skin deep (e.g., “Some things never go away. Those are the things you keep deep within you, right? The things nobody knows about.”), but it always turns out to be a false start.
Van Dusen and Learned are competent, but we see few moments of genuine interaction; rather, this is mostly two personality types talking at each other.
But what do I know? Half the audience was tickled to death at the goings-on. I often find there’s a disconnect between myself and audiences at ICT shows. Quite clearly, the company’s artistic director, caryn desai, and co. know their standard demographic. I just don’t happen to be in it.
SOUTHERN COMFORTS INTERNATIONAL CITY THEATRE • 300 E OCEAN BLVD • LONG BEACH 90802 • 562.436.4610 • ICTLONGBEACH.ORG • THURS-SAT 8PM, SUN 2PM • $37-$44 • THROUGH APRIL 10
