‘Five Women’ Open Up: the Gift of Gab

“Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” is a character-driven comedy. That means the plot is as thin as water.

Not necessarily a bad thing. The women populating Alan Ball’s play are colorful and curious, the kind you can watch even when nothing much happens.

The little hub for these tattered Southern belles is the wedding of a bride that none of them can stand. All five are bridesmaids, stuck in the same ugly dress and in varying degrees of lousy lives.

The ceremony is over, and they’ve staked out an upstairs bedroom (crisply designed by David Scaglione) to wait for the reception (and the free booze). In the meantime, they talk. About the annoyingly gorgeous bride, affairs, husbands, boyfriends, AIDS, abortion, child abuse, drugs, Christian fundamentalism.

At Orange Coast College, the gabbing is revealing and fun, mainly because director John Ferzacca has capable young actors to work with. The production alternates casts (only Tamara Hoffman as Meredith, the bride’s bitter, biting sister, is in both), and the one I saw opening weekend was well-rehearsed.

Even when Ball loses his balance in the second act and turns preachy with the comedy’s more serious subjects, the actresses keep their poise. They may slip a bit along with Ball’s dialogue, but they right themselves quickly.

The play opens with Meredith running around looking to get high on pot. She’s also looking for some crisis, big or small, to ruin the reception. Hoffman’s Meredith is a brawler, but all that feistiness camouflages her pain.

Surrounding Meredith are Mindy (a no-nonsense Jaylene Weaver), the groom’s lesbian sister, and Frances (a Betty Booping Helene Disbrow), the bride’s born-again cousin. Trisha (the classy Lea Kassebaum) has slept with men all over town, and Georgeanne (the lively Barbara Rattigan) is unhappily married and guzzling champagne.

Besides the bride and their own disenchantment, the quintet shares Tommy Valentine, the never seen but much jawed about Knoxville Romeo. Tommy made his way into all their beds at one time and becomes a convenient target.

Tommy takes mighty big hits, but the broadsides are aimed at themselves as much. What does it say about us, they wonder, that we could gleefully swallow a pill like that? The answer isn’t fully forthcoming in “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress,” but raising the question proves interesting.

BE THERE

“Five Women Wearing the Same Dress,” runs today, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at Orange Coast College’s Drama Lab Theatre, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa. Ends Sunday. $6-$9. (714) 432-5880. Running time: 2 hours.