Beth Henley's plays have always hinted at the dark side of the rural/tribal values lingering at the cultural roots of our country's southern regions, but smug Yankee directors and audiences usually prefer to chuckle complacently at the droll antics of their hayseed cousins. This time, however, Henley does not offer them that option. The scenario proposed by her teenage narrator starts with a man wearing bloody clothes fetching ice from a motel dispensary and only gets worse after that.
Of course, a 16-year-old girl who never removes her coat, deliberately cultivates a flawed complexion, and requests an antique wheelchair for Christmas might not be most reliable of witnesses, but since she is the sole survivor of that fatal December night in Jackson, Mississippi during the troubled winter of 1964, we don't have much choice. Besides, a child threatened by her parents' imminent divorce has a right to view the world a little sidewise. Anyway, her purpose is not to point fingers—the crimes committed by her villains are far less heinous than the church bombings in nearby Meridian—but to draw us a picture of an environment like "a swamp you're living on that pulls you under." It's simple to ignore that pull at first. The bartender in the motel coffee shop and his housekeeper girlfriend who conspire to send an innocent Black man to the gas chamber ("He knew the system," shrugs the latter) are easy culprits—but then there's the wife with artistic inclinations driven to madness by her insecurities, and the dentist addicted to the pharmacopoeia of his trade, who loses his license after perpetrating an act of reckless malpractice, rather than risk following in the steps of his suicidal brother. Surrounded by such adults as these, is it any wonder that young Rosy's temperament belies her name and years? As with Neil Simon, a few more generations of playgoers are needed to free Henley from the expectations of cartoonish grotesquery associated with her earlier work. In the meantime, Profiles Theater director Joe Jahraus and his cast acknowledge the intimacy of their storefront quarters to keep their production's tone subdued and acting styles naturalistic—no easy accomplishment in a milieu where people say things like "She smells like broken crayons," and others reply, "All the colors you don't want to use." The ensemble work is impeccable, but the standout performance of the 85-minute evening is Loyola University freshman Juliana Liscio in the role of the forlorn adolescent who just might someday write about her experiences for comfortably uncomprehending strangers like us.
