Friendship is often a different kind of family. Kinship is an accident of birth, and adoption is a matter of propinquity. But lifelong friendships are based on the choice to continue cultivating a relationship of kindred spirits.
Friendship is often a different kind of family. Kinship is an accident of birth, and adoption is a matter of propinquity. But lifelong friendships are based on the choice to continue cultivating a relationship of kindred spirits.
That theme of keeping close with friends over the course of life is the subject of the Lamplighters Community Theatre’s first show of the acting troupe’s 79th season. The play, which opened its month-long run on July 8, is titled “The Dixie Swim Club.” Playwrights Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten collaborated to pen this poignant comedy about five women who met as members of North Carolina’s Pemberton College women’s swim team competitors, and then maintained their friendship, meeting each year for a summer beach weekend, swimming together and catching up on the changes in each woman’s life.
The spare, two-act play showcased the quintet of characters in interaction, and each of them was showcased in a soliloquy vignette during the play. Director Jerry Pilato summed up the script, calling it “a hilarious and touching comedy about friendships that last forever.” Walls of the performance hall were decorated with beach items such as sand buckets, beach balls, beach chairs and signs saying “To the beach” and “Changing rooms this way” (for the theater restrooms). Beach Boys songs and other summertime oldies tunes further enhanced the theme.
The play began with the college swim team meeting over 20 years beyond their initial friendship, at a mid-life juncture. Sheree (enacted by Sandy Hotchkiss), team captain, was first character on stage, tidying up the old rental beach cottage where the group met annually and laying out her special “healthy” unappealing appetizers for her soon-to-arrive four teammate friends. Second through the door was Lexie (Devi Noel), an event planner who always brightened up the cottage with flowers and tales of her most recent man-revolving relationships. Dinah (Connie Terwilliger), the Atlanta success story of the group, brought along her martini shaker while trying to put aside her lawyer briefcase for the weekend. Vernadette (Christine McCoy) next hastened into the cottage toward the bathroom, with her new physical injury, her new “country song” family woe, and her “bladder that gets smaller every year,” according to the other girls. The foursome assembled to sit and chat as they awaited the last of their members, Jeri Neal (Donnalee Brayman), who had tantalized her friends with mention of having big news. What could the nun among them have that was earth-moving to share?
Jeri Neal crossed the cottage door threshold awkwardly, a result of her near-term pregnancy. She explained to her friends that she had left the convent after becoming convinced that she was meant to be a mother instead of a nun, and she had become pregnant through artificial insemination — “just under the wire,” in her friends’ formulation. They were aghast with surprise, but they supported Jeri Neal as she went into early labor and they took her to the nearest local hospital to give birth to her son.
Act One, Scene Two, was set five years later. With these women approaching the half-century mark of life, they were beginning to confront the loss of significant loved ones. Sheree had married the son of their swim team coach, and she sadly informed her former teammates and friends that “coach” was declining but wanted the others to know that they were “the best team he had ever coached.”
The team’s competitive chant was “The faster we swim, the sooner we win,” which they recited. They danced together, and then they challenged each other to go out for a skinny dipping swim, concluding the first half of the play.
Lamplighters’ artistic director Mark Loveless said, “This season is starting off great. This show is doing really well.” The season will feature five other plays and a short-run, late-year holiday show. Loveless will direct the musical that concludes the season this spring, “They’re Playing Our Song.”
At intermission, the community theater group sold raffle tickets and requested further East County support and volunteer assistance to continue providing quality entertainment at low cost. Loveless introduced the second half of the show, noting that Lamplighters had done La Mesa proud with 22 nominations from the San Diego Act Awards for the past season, before he pulled winning raffle tickets and helped bestow prizes to audience members.
The second act commenced again five years later, with the friends maturing into their early 50’s. In yet another surprise, Jeri Neal had married a younger man, who helped complete her family in addition to her son. An approaching storm threatened to interrupt their weekend rendezvous, and Sheree organized escape routes and plans, while Vernadette baked her mother’s recipe of biscuits to help weather the storm, and then waxed eloquent on Southern culture standing strong against cosmopolitan influences that would homogenize biscuits and Southern culture out of existence. As Sheree led Vernadette and Jeri Neal off to drive out of harm’s way, Dinah and Lexie stayed behind for confidences about Lexie’s health threat and Dinah’s commitment to assist her through the medical crisis.
Act Two, Scene Two, was set 23 years later, dealing with these friend’s frailties and physical infirmities, and the loss of one of the five. The last scene opened with their former beach cottage meeting place no longer sunny and welcoming but barren and readied for demolition. Unbeknownst to the others, the bulwark guaranteeing their annual August retreat to meet had been Dinah, who purchased the old beach cottage and ensured that Sheree could claim the weekend rental each year. With Dinah’s death as first to be lost of their team, the cottage was to be torn down and replaced. Sturdy, healthy Sheree walked using a cane after hip replacement surgery. Vernadette struggled to reclaim memories as her incisive good humor was lost to mental decline, and formerly self-centered man-chaser Lexie served as Vernadette’s caregiver-companion. And Jeri Neal was rounding out the circle of expectation-bending life changes with her son in marriage to an older woman. The cottage walls echoed with the women’s stunning but telling remarks from earlier years there. And the play ended with the remaining foursome watching the lovely sunset and preparing to scatter Dinah’s ashes from the “fitting” container of her beloved martini shaker.
Performances of “The Dixie Swim Club” will be staged on Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., and for Sunday matinees at 2 p.m., through August 7. The theater is located at 5915 Severin Drive. Ticket reservations and other information can be obtained by phoning (619) 303-5092.
