Women's Theater Project: Sunday on the Rocks (reviews)

The Women's Theatre Project opened its production of Theresa Rebeck's Sunday on the Rocks on April 21, 2011.

On a beautiful Sunday morning in mid October, three house mates decide to have scotch for breakfast in this play by the author of Spike Heels, The Family of Mann and Loose Knit.  Elly is pregnant and considering an abortion, Jen is being harassed by a co-worker who is obsessed with her, and Gayle just feels a bit lost.  Their problems are compounded by a fourth roommate, Jessica, a religious young woman who has little compassion for their confused attempts to make sense of modern life.  As they drink, joke and argue, it becomes clear how difficult it is to make moral decisions in an increasingly complex world.

Genie Croft directed a cast that included Pilar Uribe, Lela Elam, Dyanni Batcheller, and Jacqueline Laggy.

Christine Dolen reviewed for The Miami Herald:

Like the script itself, the production rides a roller coaster of highs and lows. Under Genie Croft’s direction, three of the four actors deliver strong, textured performances, while the fourth is stuck playing a character who doesn’t operate by the rules of logical human behavior. (...a tiny-but-tough Jacqueline Laggy  ...the inventive Lela Elam, stuck
playing the least-developed of Rebeck’s characters ...the deft, funny
Pilar Uribe)

Certain scenes — three housemates getting drunk and high on a sunny Sunday morning while confessing their secrets, for example — are tight and terrific. But “Sunday on the Rocks” goes on way too long, as Rebeck digs into three of the four women’s stories, and its swerve from comedy into sobering, raging conflict finds some in the audience laughing when they should be unsettled, even appalled.

John Thomason reviewed wrote for the Broward/Palm Beach New Times:

It sounds like grim stuff, but this production is one of the year’s snappiest and funniest, providing ample opportunity for the capable ensemble to express their comedic chops. Laggy, in particular, has never been better, but all four actresses embody every complex emotion, from gleefully sloshed sisters-in-arms to confessional sad sacks to prickly verbal warriors.

The theater’s redesigned interior space contains one of its best sets in some time – a well-furnished living room leading to a leaf-strewn porch.

Frankly, I wouldn't bother to click through for this one; Those two paragraphs comprise the only sentences worth reading.

Sunday on the Rocks plays at The Women's Theatre Project through May 15, 2011.