Lonestar/Laundry and Bourbon is running at the Focus Theatre in Dublin at the moment. I went along to see it last night, and enjoyed it a lot.
The play is split in 2 distinct parts, almost like 2 plays based in the same town with connected characters, but the 3 women in the first act and the 3 men in the second have very different stories to tell.
The first act is based in the back yard of the Coulder house in Maynard Texas, on a hot summer's day where Elizabeth Coulder is doing her laundry with the help of her friend Hattie - a 3rd friend shows up a little later on. The women discuss their lives since leaving high school, and Elizabeth discusses her marital problems - her husband Roy hasn't been himself since coming back from Vietnam. She hasn't seen him in 2 days, as he's driven away in his Pink 1959 Thunderbird convertible - an important theme in the play!
The women's discussions are retrospective, flippantly serious and humorous, and the actors playing the 3 parts are fantastically natural and wonderfully evocative. The humour is played out brilliantly and adds reality to the flow of the conversation.
Part 2 deals with the men, Roy Coulder, his brother Ray and a 3rd man that Roy isn't fond of - Cletus Fulleroy. Roy and Ray play a drunken game of soldiers in Vietnam, and discuss women and old times - a similar kind of retrospective storytelling to the women's story from the first half.
The humour is again played brilliantly naturally and whilst there were individual comic volleys that were "funnier" than those in the first half, there is a darker tone to this second half. Roy has to deal with the sinister remnants of war, and the realisation that he doesn't return to the same country that he left 2 years previously for Vietnam. He also has to realign his priorities, which are clearly his car, his Lonestar beer and his wife.
The central aspect of the second half is this realisation, and the events and conversations that lead to this are a lot heavier and darker than the overall feeling of the play from the first half.
Everyone acting in the play was excellent, and the exceptionally intimate setting of the Focus really works to connect the audience to any piece of theatre (yes, I've been before). The women were faultless, but the men appear to have harder issues to deal with in their story. The actors playing Roy and Ray worked very well together, and as I mentioned above, there were a number of really comic moments in the 2nd half.
I seem to encourage almost everything that I read, see or do, maybe that's only natural given the perspective I have (i.e. I choose books and things to do that interest me....) but this is a good evening's entertainment. Well delivered and entertaining. Oh, and don't leave after the first act - it's only the interval, and the men have their story to tell too!
Tickets €18.50
Focus Theatre
6 Pembroke Place
Dublin 2
Tel: 676 3071
Did I forget marks? Hmmm, shall we say 19/23? 2 marks away because the legroom in the Focus is a little distracting (have to keep shifting in your seat to assuage the pins and needles) and 2 marks away for occasional (very occasional) accent weakness.
The play is split in 2 distinct parts, almost like 2 plays based in the same town with connected characters, but the 3 women in the first act and the 3 men in the second have very different stories to tell.
The first act is based in the back yard of the Coulder house in Maynard Texas, on a hot summer's day where Elizabeth Coulder is doing her laundry with the help of her friend Hattie - a 3rd friend shows up a little later on. The women discuss their lives since leaving high school, and Elizabeth discusses her marital problems - her husband Roy hasn't been himself since coming back from Vietnam. She hasn't seen him in 2 days, as he's driven away in his Pink 1959 Thunderbird convertible - an important theme in the play!
The women's discussions are retrospective, flippantly serious and humorous, and the actors playing the 3 parts are fantastically natural and wonderfully evocative. The humour is played out brilliantly and adds reality to the flow of the conversation.
Part 2 deals with the men, Roy Coulder, his brother Ray and a 3rd man that Roy isn't fond of - Cletus Fulleroy. Roy and Ray play a drunken game of soldiers in Vietnam, and discuss women and old times - a similar kind of retrospective storytelling to the women's story from the first half.
The humour is again played brilliantly naturally and whilst there were individual comic volleys that were "funnier" than those in the first half, there is a darker tone to this second half. Roy has to deal with the sinister remnants of war, and the realisation that he doesn't return to the same country that he left 2 years previously for Vietnam. He also has to realign his priorities, which are clearly his car, his Lonestar beer and his wife.
The central aspect of the second half is this realisation, and the events and conversations that lead to this are a lot heavier and darker than the overall feeling of the play from the first half.
Everyone acting in the play was excellent, and the exceptionally intimate setting of the Focus really works to connect the audience to any piece of theatre (yes, I've been before). The women were faultless, but the men appear to have harder issues to deal with in their story. The actors playing Roy and Ray worked very well together, and as I mentioned above, there were a number of really comic moments in the 2nd half.
I seem to encourage almost everything that I read, see or do, maybe that's only natural given the perspective I have (i.e. I choose books and things to do that interest me....) but this is a good evening's entertainment. Well delivered and entertaining. Oh, and don't leave after the first act - it's only the interval, and the men have their story to tell too!
Tickets €18.50
Focus Theatre
6 Pembroke Place
Dublin 2
Tel: 676 3071
Did I forget marks? Hmmm, shall we say 19/23? 2 marks away because the legroom in the Focus is a little distracting (have to keep shifting in your seat to assuage the pins and needles) and 2 marks away for occasional (very occasional) accent weakness.
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