Talley's Folly
The North Coast Rep has extended its run of Lanford Wilson's "waltz," and rightly so. It's a month after D-Day. Change is in the air, and Matt Friedman knows it. He'll make the ultimate risk: propose to Sally Talley, the "radical old maid" -- actually she's 31 -- and nurse's aide in Lebanon, Missouri. Although they're as antithetical as Jack Sprat and his Mrs. (he's Jewish, her family's anti-Semitic), Matt's convinced Sally's his soul mate. He has, he tells the audience, 97 minutes to woo her in the waterlogged boathouse, a latticed Victorian "folly." The play won a Pulitzer Prize, in part because Wilson uncovers surprising similarities beneath a surface crammed with opposites. On Marty Burnett's excellent set, David Ellenstein and Amy Biedel perform a kind of dance on eggshells. Both fine individually, the actors blend together as well as their characters don't: Matt with dogged persistence, Sally with believable (even insurmountable) objections.
Critic's pick.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, November 15, 2009
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm & 7pm |
| Wednesdays, 8pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 8pm |