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`WAITRESSES' WELCOME VERVE BUCKS A TREND
Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
November 7, 1988
Author: BOB HICKS - of the Oregonian Staff
Estimated printed pages: 2


``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).

Edition: FOURTH
Section: ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
Page: D06
Index Terms: Theater Review
Copyright (c) 1988 Oregonian Publishing Co.
Record Number: 8811070081

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