REVIEW: Lyric sees near perfect portrayal in “Wedding”
Intended to be a play highlighting a young girl’s coming of age, “The Member of the Wedding” at the Old Lyric Repertory Company ends up being a coming out party for a lead actress.
Sheri Williams Pannell portrays Berenice Sadie Brown, the maid and cook at the home of a recently widowed jeweler, and the glue that holds the family together. She also holds the production together – which at times is almost frenetic and close to being taxing on the audience – with her dead-on portrayal and characterization.
Pannell accomplishes that rare goal of no longer being an actor portraying a character, but becomes exactly who she was scripted to be. In the eye of the audience, Pannell did not exist, only Berenice.
“The Member of the Wedding” is placed in the mid-1940s, as World War II is winding down and as racial tensions are still plentiful. Race, however, is only a tangential issue, as the play focuses on a 12-year-old girl, Frankie Addams, (Rebecca Johnson) who feels ignored as her family prepares for her older brother’s wedding. She has notions of running off with her brother and his bride after the wedding, as well as other fantasies.
Frankie often confides in Berenice and a neighborhood waif-like cousin named John Henry West about her dreams to get out of her tired old town and leave her father who rarely involves himself in her life. Johnson, who is excellent playing a similar teen character in “Picnic,” here finds herself relying on trashing and screaming and throwing chairs to carry her emotion.
Johnson, however, must be commended for the delivery of a massive amount of dialogue. Many scenes, particularly in the first act, belong almost totally to Frankie. The production centers around these three characters in the family kitchen, and thanks to Pannell’s perfect temperament, emotion and characterizations, the sometimes overdone pace and delivery of others – including Johnson – is mollified and tolerated.
Christian Selter, though soft of voice, was memorable as young cousin John Henry.
James Macon Grant and Patrick Sims play friends of Berenice that are more caught up in the racial issues of the day. Much of Sims’ dialogue was among that which was lost on the audience due to the overdone tension and frenzied portrayal he tried to build into his short stays on stage.
The lighting and sound design (both credited to Jarrod Larsen) and set design (Shawn Fisher) are near perfect and play important parts in the production.
But it is Pannell who carries that label of “near perfect” in most patron’s minds at the end of the production.
“The Member of the Wedding” runs in repertory with “Cash on Delivery,” “The Spitfire Grill,” and “Picnic.” Caine Lyric Theater, 28 W. Center, Logan. 750-1500 for ticket information. Directed by Terence Goodman. Running time: 110 minutes, with one 10-minute intermission.