``Every daughter makes the same mistakes her mother did,'' sighs
Ruby, a tired but not-so-old waitress whose own daughter is about to
run off and get married in Charles Deemer's drama ``Waitresses.''
Maybe, maybe not. The tendency's there, that's for sure. But children
can take their own small steps away from biological history.
``Waitresses,''
Firehouse Theater's season-opening show, is a three-way comedy-drama
about ambition, love and the hard struggle to accept independence when
you've got someone there to lean on.
``Waitresses'' had its
premier three or four seasons ago at the old Cubiculo. It's getting a
second chance thanks to Firehouse's seasonlong tribute to Oregon
playwright Deemer. A revival of ``The
Half-
Life Conspiracy'' will follow, with a brand-new script, ``Oro Oregono,'' to come next spring.
Portland has been going through one of those tentative patches when too
many productions and performances have missed the mark. ``Waitresses''
bucks the trend. Director Julie Akers' three actors exude confidence
and readiness; they spat and coo and overlap dialogue with welcome
verve. What they lack, at times, is the tenderness to let the play's
simple truths come out.
The ever-intelligent and increasingly
fluid Vana O'Brien gives yet another fine performance worth going out
of your way to see -- this time as Ruby, the told-you-so mother in the
tired Oregon town of Rimrock. She receives good support from Gigi Gray
as her waiflike but determined daughter, Jill; and Gary Brickner-Schulz
as Jill's untamable country-crooner husband, Duncan, who takes off for
Nashville and astonishingly hits it big. (``If you want to make it in
show business,'' Sophie Tucker advised the young Johnny Ray, ``get the
hell out of Oregon.'')
The second time around, ``Waitresses''
seems a minor play with some potentially major but undeveloped themes.
It takes a little patience to get through the repetitive writing and
some flat, awkward dialogue -- particularly when the possibilities of
something better are so easy to see. Akers' production reminds us that
Deemer wrote ``Waitresses'' quickly, on break from a more ambitious
project.
But despite the play's lack of shape, it plays around
(as Deemer almost always does) with some intriguing ideas: the
stretches and strains of a triangular relationship, the emotional
rights of the man in an abortion decision, the almost desperate will
some people have to limit themselves.
Size is a constantly
shifting factor in ``Waitresses.'' The wide, high country of Central
Oregon is crammed into a cutaway mobile home on stage (Mark Loring
designed the set), and the ``big'' city down the road is Bend. Portland
is too huge and cold to contemplate, and Nashville is Sodom, Gomorrah
and the Milky Way rolled into one.
If the original production
slighted the mother-daughter relationship, this one falters on the
husband-wife side of the triangle. Gray and O'Brien develop some fine
complexities together, and O'Brien and Brickner-Schulz find some sparks
in the darker relationship between Ruby and Duncan. But there isn't
enough quiet connection between Brickner-Schulz and Gray: The breakdown
of Jill and Duncan's marriage touches on tragedy, and neither that nor
their tentative reconciliation is felt adequately.
Costumes are by Kurt Shultz, lighting by David Harrington and make-up design by Diane Trapp.
THEATER REVIEW Waitresses Author: Charles Deemer Director: Julie Akers
Where: Firehouse Theater, 1436 S.W. Montgomery When: 8 p.m. Fridays-
Saturdays through Dec. 3 Tickets: $6-$8.50 (280-6592).