YP’s ‘Swim Club’ dives into the heart

June 12, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

If you want to see a truly sophisticated adult comedy that makes you feel smarter just for having seen it, there’s a great new Woody Allen movie (“Midnight in Paris”) in town. But if your comedy taste runs more towards Pabst Blue Ribbon and cheesy grits than Dom Perignon and foie gras, “The Dixie Swim Club” should be the early-summer pause that refreshes.

Inexplicably credited to three writers (Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten), “Swim Club” seems more like something that was assembled by a computer program than human hands. A clunky amalgam of stray parts (“Designing Women,” “Steel Magnolias,” “Sex and the City,” “The Golden Girls” and even “Same Time Next Year”), the play is a chicken-fried Frankenstein’s monster, and just as ungainly (and occasionally gauche) as that description sounds.

It’s also — and here’s the surprising part — a perfectly amiable divertissement, at least in the hands of director Christopher Fidram, who works his customary magic on this committee-penned kitsch. Accordingly, the Youngstown Playhouse production of “Dixie Swim Club” that opened Friday night is an unexpectedly pleasant time-killer. No one will ever confuse it with the Pulitzer winners Fidram built his reputation on (“Rabbit Hole,” “Dinner With Friends,” etc.). Yet with a cast comprised of some of the area’s most dependable heavy-hitters — including the sublime Stephanie Cambro in a most welcome return to the stage — I found myself more engaged, amused and yes, even touched, than I would have ever thought possible going in.

Spanning thirty-three years, the show is set in a dreamy beachside cottage on North Carolina’s Outer Banks where five college-gal pals reunite every year for a weekend of boozing, gossiping and old-fashioned female bonding. Like life itself, nothing — and pretty much everything — happens during the course of those three decades-plus. Marriages begin or end; children and grandchildren are born; careers take off and occasionally stall out; health problems surface. There’s even the occasional visit from the Grim Reaper. But its their unfailing devotion to each other that helps get them through even the roughest of times.

Although the characters are largely written as a clich d series of cornpone stereotypes (Cambro’s Lexie is the sex-crazy one; Gerri Sullivan’s Vernadette is terminally accident-prone; Denise Sculli’s earth mother Sheree is a lousy cook; etc.), Fidram and his wonderful actors refuse to condescend to any of them. That restraint and — dare I say it? — subtlety makes all the difference. Instead of coming across as broadly cartoonish grotesques, Lexie, Sheree, Vernadette, Jeri (Lori Broderick) and Dinah (Terri Wilkes) seem almost lifelike. It’s a real testament to Fidram’s skill and sensitivity as a director.

Jim Lybarger’s Creamsicle-colored set and spot-on costume design by Cherie Stebner are reliably first-rate, yet it’s the performances you’ll remember (and treasure) most upon leaving the theater. Scullli, Cambro and Broderick are three actresses who can do no wrong in my book, and they’re all sensational. Sullivan and Wilkes — both of whom have been guilty of overstatement and even an occasional shrillness in the past — are consistently strong here. Sullivan earns the heartiest, most affectionate audience laughs as the luckless Vernadette, and an impressively subdued Wilkes can’t help breaking your heart.

Though no one ever will confuse this “Swim Club” with an Olympic-worthy event, it’s the type of undemanding, feel-good fare that seemingly never goes out of style on the regional theater circuit. And in a production as solidly crafted as this one, it’s easy to see why.

“The Dixie Swim Club” runs through next Sunday at the Youngstown Playhouse. For reservations, call 330-788-8739.