In a small Texas town, Mary (Lauren Kennedy), Joanne (Sarah Stiles), and Kathy (Anneliese van der Pol), in their high school cheerleader costumes, are getting ready for their prom andtexas discussing (and singing about) their problems: boys, figuring out what they’re going to do with their lives. They don’t want to miss a thing; they want the American dream.
Joanne wants only to marry and have kids. Mary wants be glamorous and live the good life. Kathy, ever the organized one, wants a man who’s organized.
Joanne worries that one of the tight-knit trio might not get admitted into the same college. “I can’t imagine what comes next,” the three sing with a mix of anxiety and anticipation.
Joanne is the moralistic one; Mary has more worldly ideas about how far she’ll go with a boy. Ultimately they do get into the same college and room together, with hints of expanding their horizons. A small town is nice, but “when your world stops at the city limits, there’s a lot that you’ll never see,” conservative Joanne sings.
As the three prepare for Joanne’s upcoming wedding, Mary announces she’s about to fly to Rome, fly “into the future.” While Joanne will marry the boy she’s been going with for years, Mary changes boyfriends as often as she switches sweater sets. The ever-faithful Kathy is dumped by her boyfriend of many years. It’s lucky she got a degree in physical education and can teach.
Time passes. The three meet in 1974 for a reunion in Kathy’s penthouse apartment in New York. Joanne, long married, lives in Connecticut with husband Ted and their three children. Mary enters wearing a bold outfit. She happily runs an art gallery, which several friends from Italy helped her establish. The art she sells isn’t exactly Old Masters, but it sells well and she has her much-valued freedom.
Mary and Joanne wonder how Kathy, who has never married, came to have such a splendid apartment. Her answer is ambiguous.
In choosing between tea and champagne, which Kathy has offered as refreshment, the now unsettled Joanne craves more of the bubbly. Their lives have not become what they as young girls in Texas had imagined.
A bittersweet feeling infuses this meeting, with Joanne finally angrily leaving, unhappy with the path the other two have taken.
But time passes. In 1990, the three meet again at the funeral for Mary’s mother. They draw close again. Joanne has divorced, finally realizing that husband Ted was not the squeaky clean hero she’d always thought. They all have compromised, but each has achieved a kind of success in their lives. They are satisfied.
Performances are excellent. Lauren Kennedy’s Mary has the right tinge of sophistication; Anneliese van der Pol’s Kathy begins uncertain, but achieves confidence; Sarah Stiles’s Joanne projects an appropriate mix of naiveté and self-righteousness. All three sing very well, with Stiles producing that extra zing that makes audiences take notice.
Director Judith Ivey, also a noted actress, confidently takes the reins for Vanities with terrific results. David Kirshenbaum’s music and lyrics flow effortlessly into the spoken text, which is maybe why individual song titles are not listed in the program. Wittily designed costumes by Joseph G. Aulisi afford the quick changes required, aided likewise by Anna Louizos’s sparse but accurate sets.
An excellent eight piece combo, under direction of Bryan Perri, accompanies from offstage.
Vanities not only makes for a warm, satisfying evening in the theater, but offers a terse, telling insight into many American women’s lives.
Vanities
Second Stage Theatre
307 West 43rd Street
Tickets: 212-246-4422
Running time: 100 minutes
Closes: August 9
Diana Barth writes and publishes “New Millennum,” an arts newsletter. She also reviews for TotalTheater.com.
