Frankie Addams really, really wants to get out of dodge. The teenager and her struggles are put center stage in The Member of the Wedding, a staple of high school English classes adapted into a play in 1950 and now being staged by 1st Stage.
Frankie (Zoe Walpole) becomes feverishly fixated on her brother’s upcoming nuptials, enraptured by her vision of the wedding and strangely confident she will convince the newlyweds to take her with them (and away from her chafing home life). Frankie’s struggle is tinged with desperate loneliness: she wants nothing more than to be part of a “we,” naively believing she can insert herself into the couple’s partnership and find a real sense of belonging for herself.
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More than half the play is spent focusing on Frankie’s woes, and those portions can move along tediously. Her plan is almost laughingly unrealistic (a point emphasized more than once by her dear, sensible housekeeper Berenice), and the character isn’t written with much nuance (Walpole, for her part, struggles to maintain a consistent accent and stretches credulity as a 13-year-old). But moments of humanity emerge: a scene where Frankie dresses in what she sees as a lovely ball gown for the main event turns heartbreaking as her friends and family openly laugh at her fashion choice and childish notions of glamour.
More than half the play is spent focusing on Frankie’s woes, and those portions can move along tediously. Her plan is almost laughingly unrealistic (a point emphasized more than once by her dear, sensible housekeeper Berenice), and the character isn’t written with much nuance (Walpole, for her part, struggles to maintain a consistent accent and stretches credulity as a 13-year-old). But moments of humanity emerge: a scene where Frankie dresses in what she sees as a lovely ball gown for the main event turns heartbreaking as her friends and family openly laugh at her fashion choice and childish notions of glamour.
The Member of the Wedding is more interesting when it delves into the interior lives of its African-American characters, stifled in a racist, foreboding 1945 South. At the show’s heart is Berenice (a transfixing Deidra LaWan Starnes), a loving but firm presence in Frankie’s life who gets a few moments of her own to reflect on her interior struggles, in particular the death of her first husband. Berenice’s own worries often feel more urgent than Frankie’s coming-of-age concerns: in particular, the fate of her foster brother Honey whose pride and temper don’t allow him to act obsequiously to the white men who surround him (Berenice and her beau T.T. Williams react more demurely to the casual, cruel racism of figures like Frankie’s father, out of self-preservation).
The Member of the Wedding at 1st Stage closes June 16, 2019. Details and tickets
The show is set almost entirely in the Addams’ family kitchen, and Jonathan Dahm Robertson’s set design feels appropriately claustrophobic and confining. The show’s real climax happens after the wedding is over, and a sense of darkness falls over the proceedings, affecting everyone from Honey to Frankie to her sweet, feminine cousin John Henry (William Carroccio for this performance). The enhanced action awards The Member of the Wedding more excitement, but it remains tricky to connect deeply to a play that feels so firmly rooted in the past.
The Member of the Wedding. Written by Carson McCullers. Directed by Cara Gabriel. With Rebecca ballinger, William Carroccio, S. Gabriel Mackenna, Michael Crowley, Caroline Dubberly, Dylan J. Fleming, Jonathan Helwig, Jonathan Del Palmer, Diedra LaWan Starnes, and Zoe Walpole. Set Design: Jonathan Dahm Robertson. Costume Design: Debra Kim Sivigny. Lighting Design: Jason Arnold. Sound Design: Neil McFadden. Props Design: Felysia Furnary. Dramaturges: Debra Crerie and Kay Rzasa. Dialect Coach: Jane Margulies Kalbfeld. Stage Manager: Sarah Usary. Assistant Stage Manager: Marcus Sharnoff. Review by Missy Frederick.
