Recent arts coverage:
- At Mexic-Arte Museum, “31K Portraits for Peace” highlights hope
- At AMOA-Arthouse Laguna Gloria, small is the new big
- ‘Failed States:’ Artist-witness creates exhibit in response to shooting at Texas Capitol
- Austin Lyric Opera, music school formally quit
More arts coverage | Follow this blog on Twitter @artsinaustin | Read recent arts reviews
Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > January > 12 > Entry
Review: ‘Miss Witherspoon’
For all its status on the short list for the Pulitzer in 2006, Christopher Durang’s “Miss Witherspoon” is a shambling, rambling mess of a comedy, now getting a production by Different Stages. It has its moments of meaning and, more frequently, humor, but for the most part it feels like “It’s A Wonderful Life” for Generation Irony.
Miss Witherspoon herself, nicknamed after that grouchy type of character nobody likes in Agatha Christie novels, commits suicide sometime in the ‘90s. Her death, which begins the play, is a belated reaction to Skylab’s crashdown on Earth, itself only the last straw in a life spent wondering what else could go wrong. Unfortunately, the powers that be in this afterlife, which include Gandalf, Christ and an Indian spirit figure named Maryamma, want her to go back for her own karmic adjustment and the betterment of the world.
This leads to a lot of didactic arguments that are occasionally funny, but often too slow paced to engage. The problem with Witherspoon, played by Jennifer Underwood, is that her “brown tweed aura” just isn’t that compelling when left to simply bicker back and forth with spiritual leaders. Fortunately, to some degree, Durang has always been better at writing one-joke sketches, often very well, than scenes that build to a plot.
That’s where Different Stages’ new production has a chance to shine. While Underwood manages arch quips against Suzanne Balling’s serenely effervescent Maryamma, it’s hard to feel involved. When she’s finally cast back to Earth, though, her permanently crabbed expression finds new life as a baby to suburban yuppies, tragic child to white trash burnouts, and even a dog.
Each vignette gives the cast a chance to break out of the debate format, though, and inject some life into the production. Rotating through a range of parental figures are Derek Jones and Camille Latour, both funny as both the pampering Connecticut parents and, more bleakly, as the OD’ing abusers.
While the emphasis on most of Witherspoon’s lives is ironic, dark humor, as Underwood grows up in the rundown home, she finds some real pathos as well. Watching the older Underwood who last shone as the gleeful Duchess in Rubber Repertory’s “The Casket of Passing Fancy” descend into sullen adolescence brings the play to an emotional, if brutal, turning point.
Unfortunately, we’re quickly brought back to mildly absurd, tiring spiritual debates that rob the production of a satisfying close. Instead of a life as an example, we’re given rapidly aging pop culture quips and pedantic talking heads. As Miss Witherspoon might ask, “Why bother?”
(“Miss Witherspoon” continues at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 1 at the City Theatre, 3823 Airport, Suite D. $15-$30. 474-8497, main.org.)
Joey Seiler is an American-Statesman freelance theater critic.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Reviews
Comments
When commenting, we ask that you keep things civil and abide by our Visitor Agreement. To report comment abuse, click here.