Ginger (aka Gingy) opens Love, Loss and What I Wore with one of her drawings, projected on a screen. It’s the outfit she wore on her first day of school. She draws every piece she needs to remember. She goes into detail, describing the components, her expectations, and other emotions tied to the event. And that’s the premise of Love, Loss…each dress, suit, bra, boots and other articles of clothing trigger an important memory for the women who share their anecdotes. Often we are provided cultural and historic context for a particular piece, though some “speak” for themselves. In addition to the narrator, there is an ensemble cast of four other women. Mostly they deliver monologues, and occasionally, a group commenting on a particular subject, just to mix things up.
Adapted from the book by Ilene Beckerman, sisters Nora and Delia Ephron premiered Love, Loss and What I Wore in 2008, at Guild Hall in East Hampton New York. The play seems to turn on the idea of fetishes, that is to say, how a profound incident fuses with an object. Cigarette pants with her first night in Paris. Boots with an excruciating episode, and defiance. A tuxedo and family conflict resolved. Like In White America or Spoon River Anthology, it tells a story by weaving personal accounts (from the lives of women). From teen to young woman to woman to elder. From celebration to ordeal to epiphany to resignation.
The key to any successful writing, I think, is an intersection between the unique and universal. We may not know the stories before the curtain rises, but there’s just something about each one, that feels familiar. I am going to speculate here, that Ms. Beckerman and the Ephron Sisters were aiming to evince one aspect of the female experience. By producing these “tokens” from each vignette, we learn something from what it means to be a cis-gendered woman in American society. Not that these authors don’t push the envelope, here and there.
In a departure from their delectably silly comedies, Pocket Sandwich Theatre has gone with a show that’s reflective, wry, heartbreaking, and always authentic. The cast (Sherry Etzel, Rose Anne Holman, Araceli Radillo, Angela Vaughn, and Kim Winnubst) is nuanced, avid, invested and poised. Rose Anne Holman demonstrates her director’s chops, striking a balance between sentience and the strange realm of recollection. I wondered when I attended, if I might feel I was peering into a window. This certainly would have been enough, but Ms. Holman manages to preserve accuracy while finding the enchanted touchstone we call empathy. And that’s a miracle in woefully short supply, lately. Don’t miss this marvelous, sophisticated, unsophisticated show.
Pocket Sandwich Theatre presents: Love, Loss and What I Wore playing Tuesdays and Wednesdays: June 15, 16, 22, 23, 29 & 30 at 7:30 p.m. 5400 East Mockingbird Lane, Suite 119. Dallas, Texas 75206. 214-821-1860. pst@dallas.net