In "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress" at Riverwalk Theatre, 228 Museum Drive in Lansing, five bridesmaids from Knoxville, Tenn., knock the audience's socks off with witty repartee that's played off so naturally that you feel as though you're sitting and chatting with them.
The script was written by Alan Ball, who also wrote "Six Feet Under" and "American Beauty." Set in the early '90s, the women touch on a few serious issues, but the tone is hardly heavy. The humor keeps the audience engaged and laughing the whole way through.
The bridesmaids bond — first because they hardly know the bride, Tracy. Among the characters are the bride's sister who cannot stand her, a distant cousin and a sidekick from years past.
They talk about the bride, being an ultimate "do girl," who fits the magazine mold of what a woman should be like. But it turns out even though she seems to have a perfect life, she has no friends.
The roles could have sold short as stock characters, but instead, shine through with personality and charisma. Frances, for example, is a self-proclaimed good Christian who refuses to drink, but decides to have a glass of champagne and go outside her comfort zone to challenge her notions of what a good person is.
Mindy, who plays the lesbian sister of the groom, is portrayed as a person, not just the token lesbian. Angela Dill is hilarious as this character. Even Meredith, who seems to be the typical bratty sister, harbors an upsetting secret about her life that she shares later on.
The women are all wonderful, but the two characters that stood out as exceptional were Mindy and Georgeanne.
While Trisha — the heartbreaker of the bunch — is primping Frances — the nerdy cousin of the bride — for her date with the bartender, Mindy brings up the possibility her date is another Ted Bundy.
Georgeanne is experiencing marital difficulty with her loser husband and is drinking through the wedding. She makes viewers empathize with her relationship problems while making them crack up simultaneously.
The second act is slightly slower than the first and the southern accents start to fade. The action mostly centers around a romance between an usher, Tripp, and Trisha, the pretty one of the group.
It would have been more intriguing to see a romance unfold between Frances and the bartender, who is studying to be a lawyer. Still, the play was engaging and incredibly funny. It was easy to see the friendships the women had formed.
