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REVIEW -- "Loose Knit" by Theatre Pops
Published: 6/17/2011 5:14 PM
Last Modified: 6/17/2011 5:14 PM

“Women,” Gina one of the characters in Theresa Rebeck’s “Loose Knit” announces, “are the worst.”

She is talking about the woman who up until a couple of a weeks ago was her boss. The fact that this woman arranged to have Gina bumped from her position in a law firm to open up a position for a Harvard Law School grad, who’s just looking for gig to pad his resume, is proof positive of the terrible way women act toward other women, especially when a man is involved.

Of course, if Gina had been paying a little more attention to everything going on around here through the course of “Loose Knit,” she probably would have come to this realization a lot quicker.

Rebeck’s play is a sharp, cutting comedy about five women who gather weekly to share a few hours of respite from their lives in each other’s company as they work with varying degrees of success at manipulating needles and yarns.

Theatre Pops’ production of “Loose Knit” is the opening show in this year’s Summerstage festival, sponsored by the Tulsa Performing Arts Center Trust, and it’s easily the best show this company has presented since it staged “Much Ado About Nothing” last spring.

Rebeck has written fiction, screenplays and episodes for TV series such as “NYPD Blue” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” as well as a number of well-received plays (Heller Theatre presented Rebeck’s “Mauritius” earlier this season).

She has a real flair for crafting dialogue that sounds like everyday speech, yet maintained a finely honed theatrical edge, and she knows how to structure a scene.

If “Loose Knit” has a failing, it’s that Rebeck never quite completes the pattern she spends a couple of hours weaving. Still, it is fascinating watching how the play’s characters threading their way through these scenes that walk a fine line between high comedy and low cruelty.

Behind the cozy façade of this circle of knitters are all sorts of troubles. The two sisters, Liz (Heather Sams) and Lily (Cathy Rose), have been at each other for years. Liz is the wild one, a freelance journalist who writes about celebrities, while Lily is married to the less-than-successful academic Bob (Joseph Gomez), raises their daughter and looks after their well-to-d0 father.

Gina (Natalie Skala) has lost her job, and sequesters herself in her apartment, churning out sweater after sweater to stave off depression. Paula (Premadonna Braddick) is a therapist who isn’t about to work off the clock, no matter what the situation. Margie (Valerie Stefan) aspires to be an actress, works for a catering company, can’t knit worth a lick – but would be happy if she could just go out on a date.

Which she does – squired off to a sushi restaurant by a wealthy fellow named Miles (Kris Farnsworth), who does not use contractions and who makes notes on Margie’s conversation and actions throughout the evening, like a scientist observing a specimen in a tank.

Paula discovers that Liz and Bob are having an affair – something of which Lily, it seems, is already aware and of which Liz, for all her bluster, is somewhat ashamed.

It takes a couple of more dates with Miles – one with Paula, one with Liz, even one with Bob – before the machinations behind these events are revealed.

No one in “Loose Knits” is what you would call admirable, which gives the proceedings an atmosphere not unlike that of a date with Miles – you get the sense of watching these people from a remove, laughing at them rather than with them.

But laugh you do, and you laugh a lot, especially the way this ensemble plays it. Rebeck has the tendency to drop a punchline in whenever the action or conversation gets a little too intense, or cuts too close to the bone. Fortunately, McLoud Shingen and her cast do their best to make these moments flow as naturally as possible from the dialogue.

There isn’t a weak performance in the bunch, with Stefan as the spacey and impulsive Margie, Sams as the brazen Liz, Gomez as the genial and weak-willed Bob and Braddick as the self-possessed Paula as the most effective.

“Loose Knit” continues with performances 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday in the Tulsa PAC’s Norman Theater. For tickets: 918-596-7111 or tulsaworld.com/mytix.



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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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