STAGE REVIEWS : ‘QUILTERS’ IS POWERFUL VISION OF PIONEER LIFE

“Quilters” at Laguna Moulton Playhouse is approached with the fresh sense of discovery that a young woman might feel stumbling across her great-grandmother’s diary in the attic. Director Teri Ralston and her winning cast offer an affecting, powerful version of this beautifully spare musical that recalls pioneer life from a woman’s perspective.

The Molly Newman-Barbara Damashek story is told through the device of a prairie matriarch’s handing down quilt pieces to her six daughters, each piece prompting memories of life on the plains. The struggle for survival in an inhospitable land is seen through the gauze of memory, played out on an empty stage and illuminated with striking visual imagery that employs a minimum of props. Strips of colored sheeting turn into a rushing river or a raging fire; a low-slung canvas becomes a primitive sod house;rope and planks conjure up a sturdy log cabin;the players’ arms revolve to form a graceful windmill. On-stage musicians provide the sounds of the prairie--lonely, ominous, bone-chilling sounds--as well as the fine accompaniment.

The musical draws on familiar folklore but offers these snippets of stories with a gritty realism that evokes journal entries or letters sent back home. “Quilters” is homespun without being corn pone, keeping its distance from the sentimental and the melodramatic. The only disconcerting notes in this production are several brusque transitions in which the tone moves abruptly from melancholy to chipper.

The cast makes sure these women aren’t martyrs;there is too much humor and real pain in these characterizations to fit any preconceived notions of long-suffering pioneer wives. Karen Angela, Colleen Dunn, Tricia Griffin, Karen McBride, Carolyn Miller, Lisa Picotte and Laura Pryzgoda all create a variety of memorable characters and contribute soaring vocal work.

Moments that stand out include Angela’s unbridled glee as a scamp whose jealousy over her sister’s quilting skill leads her to a wickedly funny revenge, Griffin’s instant of understanding when she sees her husband’s co-workers slowly riding up to her door, and Pryzgoda’s moving vocal work in “The Butterfly,” set in counterpoint to the pain-etched story of a young woman’s delirium and death following childbirth.

“Quilters” will run through Feb. 8 at Laguna Moulton Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Information: (714) 494-0743.