Review: Dialogue straight from the suburbs

When it comes to locally produced, locally written theater, the Shelterbelt’s staging of two one-act plays by Omahan Ellen Struve are about as good as it gets.

Struve sculpts nuanced, believable characters with wit, insight and attention to detail, setting both stories in contemporary American homes. Her skills at both plot and dialogue are first-rate. (Her scripts were chosen for readings at the Great Plains Theatre Festival.)

The result is an extremely satisfying evening that combines generous dollops of humor with psychological complexity and meaty social commentary about marriage and parenting in the affluent suburbs.

An added treat: Both directors and all five actors do a bang-up job of bringing what Struve wrote to life.

First up: “Mountain Lion,” in which the sighting of a big cat near a residential neighborhood sets off an explosive family conflict. An angry and frustrated Peggy (Amy Lane) has called husband Boyd (Scott Working as a soft-spoken guy who holds things in) home from work. The police want to question their teen son, Joe, about the torching of a nearby park picnic shelter.

As the two talk on the patio about how to handle the situation, a wide gap emerges not only in their parenting philosophies but in their marriage.

After Boyd walks away from the argument, Joe (Sean Carlson, spot-on as a wary, confused kid) comes home, soon slumping in his baseball uniform as his mother turns inquisitor. Joe owns up to drinking in the park with his buddies. The emotional stakes rise even higher when Boyd returns.

Because the family dog is missing and Peggy is sure she saw a mountain lion, a loaded rifle is always close at hand on the patio, leaving the audience to wonder nervously how this is going to end.

Director Sonia Keffer and Struve keep things solidly grounded in reality, mining the situation for both laughs and emotional truth.

The second half of the night is just as good. “Mrs. Jennings’ Sitter” uses a series of short scenes to flesh out the relationship between Jennings (Keffer), a bored housewife with too much money to spend, and McKenna (Maddie Radcliff), the kleptomaniac teen sitter she can’t quite fire. Mc- Kenna knows too much about the cost and locations of Mrs. Jennings’ expensive purchases, and she threatens to enlighten the hubby.

Director Lane uses theme songs from kid shows and contemporary hits about parenting to bridge quick scene changes, adding to a sense of fun that pervades the pair’s contentious conversations.

But the play is not all fun and games, delving into increasingly dicey subjects like theft, lying, sex, cheating on school exams, misuse of pain pills, what makes a good mother and why a young girl might have awful self-esteem.

As we learn more about each character, we also see the nature of how they relate to each other gradually shift.

Adam Nathan’s clever set design quickly adapts from patio to home interior, a fine example of maximum credibility on a minimal budget.

Contact the writer:

444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com

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