Review: “A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur” Desire and disappointment

By Gwendolyn Rice, Isthmus, June 25, 2019

The title of Tennessee Williams’s A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur refers to a wish for a delightful afternoon outing that doesn’t quite come true. On stage at American Players Theatre in the indoor Touchstone space through Sept. 26, it is the story of four single women in mid-1930s St. Louis who are desperate to change their circumstances. Led by Colleen Madden as Bodey, a resolute, chatty, practical woman of German descent; and Christina Panfilio as Dottie, a delicate-tempered high school teacher who exercises obsessively and overspends on extravagant clothes to make herself more attractive to men, the play is a gorgeous meditation on desire, disappointment and the value of authentic relationships.

The day begins with Bodey at the tiny kitchen stove frying chicken for a lakeside picnic she’s planned for three — herself, her slightly awkward and rough-hewn twin brother, and her roommate, Dottie, who is lately driven to distraction by her school’s handsome, young principal. Not only are the two women bickering about whether they will both attend the outing, Bodey refuses to believe that her roomie will not take a romantic interest in her bachelor brother. Meanwhile, Dottie grows more agitated with every set of sit-ups, bends and stretches she performs, waiting for a call from her preferred suitor.

In a chartreuse and cherry print apron, with stockings puddling around her ankles, Madden clashes with every color on the rose wallpapered, knick-knack covered set. Her (padding-assisted) robust figure and wisps of gray hair blending in with mousy brown curls present a great contrast to Panfilio’s willowy Dottie, in a matching striped pajama set, a fashionable turquoise scarf wrapped around her bright blonde coiffure. (Spot-on costume design by Devon Painter.)

When the pearls-clutching, impeccable Helena (Tracy Michelle Arnold) arrives, she inserts herself into this already fraught morning, hoping to discuss money matters with the lovesick Dottie. A WASPy art history teacher who does little to conceal her disdain for Bodey’s excessively floral décor and fresh-off-the-boat attitudes, she wants desperately for Dottie to move with her into a much more desirable, more expensive apartment in a better part of town.

The final addition to the cacophony is Sophie (Carolyn Ann Hordemann), a distraught upstairs neighbor whose mother has died. In the throes of despair, the recent immigrant’s mostly German sentences are uttered through hysterics in fits and starts, horrifying Helena, who views Sophie’s disheveled appearance and raw grief with the same contempt as the overly decorated apartment — she physically recoils from it, as an assault of bad manners and poor taste.

Read the full review here!