MTP's "Sugar Bean Sisters" a Treat Full of Tricks

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

In the middle of the last century, folks in New Orleans called any outsider a Videllia.

“The Sugar Bean Sisters,” which opened Friday night on the stage of the historic Pelzer Auditorium, features its own Videllia, Videllia Sparks, but only as one of three women who are longing to go to a better place.

That may sound like the beginning of many plays, until you consider their individual ideas of a better place include: Salt Lake City, Mars (outer space) and anywhere but Sugar Bean, Fla. 

Avoiding paths that would lead to spoilers, this dark Southern comedy, from the pen of Nathan Sanders, serves up a heaping of entertainment gumbo from start to finish.

The Mill Town Players production opens with a song featuring the Reptile Woman and Videllia, something not in Sanders’ original stage play, that sets a perfect, if slightly misdirecting, tone for the swampy comedy.

Credit director Mary Nickles, long a mainstay of Upstate theater, for the idea of foreshadowing the second act in the opening seconds of the play, and for choosing the perfect song, “Rise Up Dead Man,” to kick off the play. Nickles’ direction, including sometimes almost hudling characters together on the brilliant stage, brings an intimacy to the production that could have been missed by a less talented director. Little wonder her services are coveted by area theater companies.

And, yes, the stage was indeed brilliant – again. Will Ragland’s instincts, set design and attention to detail are all evident in “The Sugar Bean Sisters.” The living room of the sisters’ swamp shack features a three-inch decline toward the audience, slightly skewing the viewing angles while reflecting the skewed nature of the play. What other theater features Spanish moss hanging around a well-constructed old wooden outhouse and gravestones, as well as fireflies flashing in the sugar cane jungle?

And the action takes place almost on top of the front row of the theater, another sight to behold.

That stage offers the five actors in this play a solid launching pad to propel the story. And like a series of bottle rockets all lighted at once, propel the story they do. 

Asked to describe the play last week, one of the actors said it took her a full minute to come up with an answer. I am here to help.

Think of it this way:

Act One: The creators of the Beverly Hillbillies add Mama, from “Mama’s Family” and “Sunset Boulevard’s” Norm Desmond team up to provide a show with a series of one liners, odd decisions based on the tabloid “Weekly World News,” and the revealing a family history that turns out to more than a little suspect.

Act Two: Add to the same cast, a woman who lives with snakes, hypnotizes and speaks with the confidence of an insane prophet spouting scriptures and other epitaphs with a voice that would make Lucille Ball take a lozenge. Anne Robards brings creepy, fun life to the swamp witch, as she warns others of their fates while stealing bologna and pimento cheese sandwiches and snagging a rat for (one of?) the snakes in her bag. As mentioned earlier, her strong cover of the song at the beginning of the production is almost worth the price of a ticket even if you had to leave early. 

But if you leave early, you miss three other strong performances. As the sister longing to leave for Salt Lake City and find a Mormon husband (the sisters had converted years ago because they got so few visitors in the swamp and the Mormon missionaries were good company), but only Stephanie Summerlin as Willie Mae Nettles seems particularly serious about the religion, and even that is suspect due to her crush on the married local Bishop Crumley, played with a whiteness look and performance rarely seen on stage by Todd Monsell. (He literally glows white at one point). Summerlin’s excellent in her religious neurosis, which makes her almost twitchy, and her love of the wigs that cover her baldness, is a fine foil for her sister, Faye.

Sara Hall as Faye could have been Granny Daisy May Moses sister, with a wicked hillbilly accent that tosses out some of the strangest zingers you are likely to hear in live theater. Hall’s absolute conviction that aliens are coming to take her away from all the swampiness of her life could not be better. Her devotion to the Martians is so great she’s willing to off her sister to free her of all earthly obligations.

And while she doesn’t want a husband, Kelly Neal’s feathered wonder Videila Sparks, has a more pernicious agenda and a history to match. Neal makes the acting within an acting role, (go see the play and this will make more sense), look easy. From camp to fun loving to cold blooded, her Videillia brings a swagger to the party. She wants Willie Mae’s “grapefruit fortune” and is not really above doing anything to get it. The fact that she is responsible for numerous deaths and an unjust hanging in her past does little to diminish her great effort to the energy and physicality of the role.

Her character also has secrets, and there are too many surprises for me to say any more other than this one is among the most entertaining local plays I’ve seen, with engaging performances, fine directing and the perfect set.

Stage Manager Evelyn LeTeshia, Lighting Designer Tony Penna, and Costume Designer Cyndi Lorhmann should also take a bow. The sound and lights were remarkable, and the swamp folks and others all looked like they were actual people in a production that could not possibly be based on a true story.

The show runs this weekend and Oct. 17-20 at the historic Pelzer Auditorium