Bittersweet 'Thunderbird' impressive

Bittersweet 'Thunderbird' impressive

By JOSHUA PECK

NEWS SPECIAl WRITER

The hot. boring, suffocating monotony of life in rural Texas fuels the tragedy of “1959 Pink Thunder-bird.” as well as being the soul of its humor. Though the play qualifies as a comedy, it is one that draws smiles from its characters’ desperation as much as from their joys.

The play, in a word, is bittersweet.

"Thunderbird” is actually two interrelated one-acters, one each for the ladies and gentlemen of (fictional) Maynard, Texas. Either of the plays would stand alone, but together they comment on and enlighten each other; two of the three male characters in "Lone Star” are married to two of the women in "Laundry and Bourbon.”

As the plays unfold, it becomes clear that we are learning more of these people's lives through their conversation w'ith their friends (or siblings, in the men’s case) than we probably would through conversation between the married couples. One of the troubles with Maynard (or. playwright James McLure suggests, any equally benighted place) is the chronic lack of communication between the very people who ought to understand each other the best.

The central sufferers are Elizabeth in "Laundry and Bourbon.” and her husband Roy in "Lone Star.” She is worried about the direction the marriage has taken since Roy returned from Vietnam, and she tells friend Hattie all about it, while the two fold laundry and get pleasantly smashed.

In the men’s play, Roy and brother Ray (their names evidence, Roy says, of their parents’ intellectual shortcomings) are occupied with much the same business: discussing Roy s marriage and drinking themselves into a stupor. The men and women’s way of talking about sex and life vary considerably, but their boredom and desolation are of the same stuff and for largely the same reason; bleak, dusty, Maynard’s refusal ever to be anything but bleak, dusty, Maynard.

Karen Moore's Elizabeth is the spine of ‘Laundry and Bourbon." While she prattles in sometimes clever jest about this and that, and imbibes impressively, there is a sad yearning, a lack, that carries Moore through her performance with an almost visible burden. When we learn toward the play's end that she, after many years, is with child, there is a discomfiting absence of joy. Moore’s confusion and ambivalence are heartfelt and heartwarming.

Nancy Bright is appropriately boisterous as Hattie, a mother-of-too-many, whose big secret, it seems, is that she doesn’t like her children. In the smaller role of Amy Lee, the neighborhood do-gooder, Beth Temple handily delivers McLure’s digs at rural small-

mindedness. "There are very few fun things a Baptist can do," she reflects, without seeming to mind a bit.

"Lone Star” is more boisterous than its sister, and thus suffers more pronouncedly from a problem that hampers both plays. Playwright McClure is too determined to keep the laughlines coming, and even Darrell Zink (Roy), who seems to be solidly aware that discontent is the centerpiece of his character, sometimes loses touch with the pain and gives in entirely to the jollity that is only supposed to mask it.

The outstanding performance of the evening (though there are no weak ones) is Patrick Butler’s as Ray. Taller and heftier than his wiry brother, he conveys the feeble-mindedness the script demands, yet infuses the role with a wisdom and sweetness that remind one of a good Lenny from Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.”

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"1959 Pink Thunderbird” has a freshness about it, for rather an interesting reason. In American drama. one expects characters to have changed by the time they’ve talked for an hour or more. "Thunder-bird’s” characters talk and think, laugh and cry, but they don’t seem to be going anywhere. That is just the point: Maynard people may age. marry, have children and affairs, but nothing essential here ever changes a bit. It is not a little like Sisyphus and his boulder.

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Thunderbird' is actually two interrelated one-acters, one each for the ladies and gentlemen of (fictional) Maynard, Texas. Either of the plays would stand alone, but together they comment on and enlighten each other...