Published Saturday
March 11, 2006

Review: Comedy trumps drama in 'Jimmy Dean'

BY BOB FISCHBACH

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
In the parched and dying town of McCarthy, Texas, the truth has been stashed under the dime store counter. Each of the main characters in Ed Graczyk's play, "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean," has been deceiving others, and sometimes herself.

Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean
What: SNAP Productions stage drama

Where: SNAP/Shelterbelt Theatre, 3225 California St.

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays, through April 2

Tickets: $15 adults, $12 students and senior citizens

Information: 341-2757

A gathering of the Disciples of James Dean, on the 20th anniversary of his death, will change all that. The arrival of a woman no one recognizes triggers a series of shattering confrontations.

Close friends Mona, Sissy and Joe formed the fan club when Dean's 1955 movie, "Giant," was filming nearby on the empty plains. Mona has named her son Jimmy Dean, after the man she says fathered him when she was an extra in the movie.

SNAP Productions director Todd Brooks is fairly adept at capturing the ennui of dead-ended lives in a small town. A detailed dime-store set by Debbie and Jeff Nelson helps him enormously, and a script full of twangy cuss words gets easy laughs out of who Dean's Disciples have become.

Understanding who they once were, from a series of flashbacks, is intended to pull the laughs up short in an uneasy balancing act that turns cackles to sad and knowing smiles, and even tears.

But despite lighting changes, you may not understand when you're seeing present and when the past, with other actors playing younger versions of three characters. The fact that the flashbacks overlap and coexist with action in the present further confuses, at least initially.

Cast members at times seem on different pages, veering from the cartoony broadness of Carol Burnett's old "Mama's Family" skits to heavy realism. Individual performances range from the overbroad to the emotionally static, with several perfect pearls of subtlety thrown in between.

In the close confines of the SNAP/Shelterbelt performance space, the gaps are occasionally glaring, and the drama loses its bite more than the comedy.

Still, the production succeeds overall with a generous sprinkling of laughs and several bravura performances.

Therese Rennels is a hoot as the personification of nouveau riche tastelessness, a mouthy dim bulb that oil-well revenue can't brighten. Barb Ross gives depth and poignancy to Bible-thumping five and dime owner Juanita, as does Mary Kelly to the elder version of Mona.

Liz Kendall is dead-on as youthful and spirited Sissy, a lively character you warm to. As older Sissy, Teri Fender veers over the top a time or two on her way to a moving and soul-baring moment.

In the complex role of enigmatic Joanne, Connie Lee resists splashing as she dredges up pools of bitterness, anger, irony, tenderness and high-spirited humor. Her controlled performance at the center of the emotional storm anchors what otherwise might wobble and topple.

A personal favorite: Sara Planck lights up the small, throwaway part of eternally pregnant Edna Louise with such honesty and credibility, you laugh with her and not at her - and you won't want to take your eyes off her.

While bittersweet undercurrents hint at untapped dramatic power, it's these individual performances, and the comedy, that probably will stick with you.

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Center Stage: Great cast highlight of 'Jimmy Dean'
Loyal Fairman, The Daily Nonpareil
03/16/2006


SNAP! Productions and director Todd Brooks have a winner in this dramatic production that had the preview audience roaring with laughter.

Brooks has created an exciting evening of entertainment with a team of actors that is remarkable. Every actor does a superb job in the telling of this tale that takes place in a small dime store in hot McCarthy, Texas, on Sept. 30, 1975. A reunion of ladies from the local chapter of the James Dean fan club in this Texas town have come together to reminisce about the making of the movie "Giant" in their own backyard and what was taking place in their lives the day Dean died Sept. 30, 1955, at the age of 24.

Barb Ross plays Juanita, the owner of the non air-conditioned five and dime. Mona, the one lady who 20 years before had a sexual indiscretion that created a son called Jimmy Dean, whose father is (you have to see the play to find out this fact), is portrayed by Mary Kelly, and Sissy is played by Terri Fender. Sissy longs to get out of the small Texas town and pursue her dream to be in the Ice Capades. Now, if she could only learn to ice skate. The character of Joanne is played by a very seductive Connie Lee, and Therese Rennels plays Stella Mae, whose flare for gaudy fashions are hilarious. Sara Planck plays a very pregnant Edna Louise.

The play also takes the audience back to 1955. The younger version of Sissy is played by Liz Kendall and the younger Mona by Sara Ludlow. It is really interesting to see the characters on stage at the same time at a young age and the age they are in 1975.

Tyler Swain plays the only male character in the play, or does he? This play is well written with all sorts of hidden twists and turns. Just when you think you have things figured out another twist comes along. You will truly be intrigued by this congregation of interesting characters. And characters are a total understatement when it comes to these ladies.

Everyone in the cast is very good and the entire production is well staged. Kudos also go to Liz Heim, the producer, and John Remington, the stage manager. Lighting design by Daena Schweiger, sound design by Dave Podendorf, dialect consultation by Susan Baer Collins, costume design by Nancy Ross and the props design by the props goddess of the metro, Rhonda Hall, are just extraordinary. Set design and construction by Debbie and Jeff Nelson is definitely noteworthy and captures the essence of a small store in a rural community in 1975. When you walk into the theater you have walked into 1975 McCarthy, Texas. When you leave, you have had a theater experience that you will cherish for a long time.

"Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" runs through April 2 at the Shelterbelt Theatre at 33rd and California streets in Omaha, just a few blocks west of the Creighton Medical Center.

You still have two weekends to catch " A Midsummer Night's Dream" at Chanticleer Community Theater at 830 Franklin Ave.

Curtain times are 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday nights and 2 p.m. Sundays.

©Daily Nonpareil 2006