Students to present play about relationships

The five bridesmaids reveal that they aren't really the bride's friends.
By L. CROW
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
YSU theater will soon present its second production of the season, "Five Women Wearing the Same Dress," written in 1993 by Alan Ball. Dr. Frank Castronovo, director of theater at Youngstown State, will also direct this play.
"This is a play about friendships and female bonding," says Dr. Castronovo. "It is comedy, but with serious overtones. It is about being alive, being a woman in today's society. The women all have drastically different personalities but find they have a shared matrix of experience, with family, society and the opposite gender.
"Through sharing their stories, they find where their lives overlap. Although there are dramatic moments, the play ends upbeat."
The setting is in present-time upper-class Knoxville, Tenn., during a wedding reception. The five bridesmaids are in the bedroom of the bride's sister and begin to gossip about the bride and groom, whom the audience never sees.
Dr. Castronovo describes the personalities of each of the women: "Meredith, the bride's sister, is the rebellious one who never escaped from the '60s. She has a picture of Malcolm X hanging in her bedroom. Mindy, the groom's sister, is a lesbian. She is outgoing, skinny and always eating. Frances is the bride's dorky cousin, an innocent, born-again Christian.
"Georgeanne is a college friend of the bride, stuck in an unhappy marriage, who describes her husband as 'a piece of wet toast' and spends most of the play three sheets to the wind. Trisha, another college friend of the bride, is glamorous, liberated and believes that any woman who gets married in this day and age is out of their mind."
Actress's view
Stephanie Ottey, recently seen onstage at YSU as Tillie in "Gamma Rays," is playing Trisha. "Trisha is promiscuous, been around the block a few times," says Ottey. "She has a cynical view of marriage; she thinks it is phony, just a show. She has had so many bad relationships."
Ottey also shares an inside view of the relationships between the characters. "They all have a reason not to like the bride," she says.
"Not one of these women are actually her friends. The bride is a woman whom they see as having it all. She is beautiful, intelligent, healthy, has a wonderful career, and has married a wealthy man who adores her. She has everything anyone could ask for. But she has no friends.
"The whole point of the play is that the bridesmaids develop an appreciation for each other," Ottey continues. "They are in an awkward position because none of them really knows the bride. But a friendship develops between themselves, and they begin to tell private stories, deep, dark secrets. It is hysterically funny, and an excellent depiction of today's woman, magnified to extremes for humor." Ottey says she has found something in common with each of the women.
Dr. Castronovo says that this play is "quirky," typical of author Alan Ball. "The women speak with a Southern accent, in regional dialogue," he said. "The setting is realistic but overly decorated, and the dresses are a nightmare in bad taste. The hats look like lamps. It represents the upper class spending too much with no taste."
Alan Ball is perhaps best known as the author of "American Beauty," which in 1999 won the Academy Award for best screenplay. He has also written the TV series "Grace Under Fire" and "Cybill" and the HBO series "Six Feet Under."
"Five Women Wearing the Same Dress" is an adults-only play, suitable for people 18 and older, according to Castronovo.