Virtual family beats the real thing
By TOM VALEO
Published June 12, 2007
As social primates, we crave the attention and affection of our fellow humans, but they have an unfortunate habit of disappointing us, irritating us and occasionally even tormenting us.
Brit Alan Ayckbourn seizes on that in his 1985 play Woman in Mind, Jobsite Theater's latest production. It depicts one woman's miserable family life as a bittersweet black comedy demonstrating that those we love often can be extremely hard to like.
The play begins with Susan (Ami Sallee Corley), a prim, somewhat haughty suburban Brit, returning to consciousness after a nasty bonk on the head. Family friend Bill (Shawn Paonessa) hovers over her, babbling in gibberish that gradually clarifies into recognizable speech, indicating that Susan is coming to her senses.
But she apparently is not quite right in the head. She now believes she has a handsome, doting husband (Steve Garland); a dashing, tennis-playing brother (Matt Lunsford); and a beautiful, adoring daughter (Caitlin McDonald) who is about to be married.
In fact, Susan is the wife of a priggish minister (Jason Vaughan Evans) who has dedicated himself to writing a tedious history of his parish. They have a son (Stephen Ray) who has been living in some sort of cult. And Susan and her husband live with his sister (Kari Goetz), a delusional widow who believes her dead husband communicates with her.
The members of Susan's imaginary family are witty, articulate and vivacious, like characters in a Noel Coward play. They also live on an estate complete with a tennis court and a swimming pool. But reality keeps intruding, at least until Susan starts to lose her grip on it, a process that takes up much of the second act.
Woman in Mind takes off like a rocket, propelled by Ayckbourn's trademark obsessions with egoism, arrogance, pretension, loveless marriage, ungrateful children, middle-class misery and the casual cruelty of the vulnerable. But it stalls in the second act. Having launched a plot full of family friction and frustrated desire, Ayckbourn can't seem to find a suitable destination for it. So the play plunges into Susan's full-blown madness, which turns out to be far less cozy and entertaining than the fantasies that triggered it.
This production, directed by David M. Jenkins, benefits from Corley's performance. She masterfully conveys the inner conflicts of Susan, who wants to be loved even though she is not very loving or lovable, and who wants to be sane even though enticed by her delusions.
If you go
'Woman in Mind'
The play runs through June 24 at the Shimberg Playhouse at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, 1010 MacInnes Place, Tampa. 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday. $19.50-$24.50. (813) 229-7827; www.tbpac.org.