Jennifer Chung Klam

San Diego Arts

'Blue Bonnet Court' by Moxie & Diversionary Theatre

Come in and stay a while
By Jennifer Chung Klam
Posted on Mar 25 2008
Last updated Mar 25 2008

A cicada stays underground until ready to emerge, with some species doing the subterranean thing for up to 17 years. It’s a fitting metaphor for Orla Mae, a black lesbian living in the stifling atmosphere of Austin, Texas in 1944.

The cicada “doesn’t harm anything, but everything wants to eat it,” she says.

It’s an unforgiving time if you’re not part of white America. Or rather, straight, white America.

Make that straight, white, gentile America.

Better to stay underground.

Which is pretty much what Orla Mae’s been doing at the start of Zsa Zsa Gershick’s 2006 play, “Blue Bonnet Court.”

Orla Mae works at the titular shabby motor hotel, where she keeps her head down and quietly takes orders from the chatty and ignorantly racist proprietress. Lila Jean busies herself with running the nearly empty hotel and tending to her drunk, racist husband, who has recently returned, shellshocked, from military duty.

Wendy Waddell (left) and Monique Gaffney

Photo: Coast Highway Photography

But nothing’s as simple as it seems at the Blue Bonnet Court. Wisecracking, fast-talking New York reporter Helen Burke (who’s actually a Berkowitz) soon finds that out when she crashes her car and gets unexpectedly stranded in the middle of this ostensibly redneck heartland stereotype.

Likewise, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface in Gershick’s award-winning dramedy, gracefully presented by Moxie Theatre and Diversionary Theatre in its second full-length production. The story tackles complex issues of race, gender, politics and the search for fellowship with much humor and genuine heart.

The outstanding ensemble is led by Wendy Waddell as Helen and Monique Gaffney as Orla Mae, gently, irresistibly falling into each other’s orbits. Waddell’s no-nonsense straight-shooter has a tough exterior built up from years of disappointments that can, finally, only be pierced by Orla Mae. Gaffney gives an understated performance, infusing Orla Mae with strength and pride, even as she suffers the daily indignities of being treated as a second-class citizen, separate but certainly not equal. What the lovers crave more than anything is to find and be finally accepted by “others like us.”

Jo Anne Glover is all smiles and southern charm as the hotel proprietress, barely hiding her pain beneath a brittle veneer. Emotionally and physically starved, Lila Jean is also desperately drawn to the stranger in town. Her damaged husband is played by Christopher Buess, and Leigh Scarritt plays one hot librarian -- also not what she seems -- who single-handedly keeps up morale for the boys in uniform.

Wendy Waddell (foreground), with Lisel Gorell-Getz

and Fred Harlow

Photo: Coast Highway Photography

Gershick pokes fun at the waning Golden Age of Hollywood and radio, and Moxie artistic director Delicia Turner Sonnenberg makes the most of these scenes with campy humor. Funny lady Lisel Gorell-Getz and multi-voiced Fred Harlow easily transition between a number of larger-than-life silver screen and radio personalities.

The humor mostly hits, though for all the play’s one-liners -- “Faygeleh? It’s Yiddish for … actor” -- it probably needs a cast this good to deliver them. The emotional punches land square, too, especially in Scarritt’s bold portrayal of her tragic character.

The production’s artistic crew got all the details right, from the original set design by Joel Daavid (adapted by Bret Young and Sonnenberg) to Jennifer Brawn Gittings’ beautifully period costumes, and the mood-soaked lighting by Mia Bane Jacobs and Jason Bieber. Rachel Le Vine’s sound design includes scratchy radio programs and the atmospheric sounds of those cicadas.

The harmless cicada’s survival depends on sheer numbers -- in the summertime, the creatures surface en masse, overwhelming their predators and singing their song in unison.

For the civil rights movement that would soon get underway, and the gay rights movement on its heels, it’s an apt metaphor, indeed.

About the author: Jennifer Chung Klam is an editor at The Daily Transcript and a freelance arts and culture writer.
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