Laundry and Bourbon at Lone Star Silo Theatre

By SUSAN BUDD

Sexual segregation rules in James McLure's two, one-act plays. The first features three women sinking bourbons and coke and talking, as women do, of their lives.

It is superbly performed and funny, with just a hint of pathos and the merest suggestion of savagery.

In contrast the second, with three men, is shadowy and unsatisfying. A tale of male angst and bonding, it lacks the sharp writing and performances of the first.

In Laundry and Bourbon, Eizabeth, played with dreamy sensitivity by Barbara Woods, has been in love for years with Roy, a wild and unmanageable but deeply attractive man with a 1959 pink Thunderbird convertible.

His wildness is turning sour since he returned to Texas from the war in Vietnam. He drifts, drunk and unfaithful, while she yearns for the security of marriage.

Hattie should be the quiet one but even though she married in her teens and is burdened with three awful kids, she is utterly outrageous.

Who needs subtlety, when Georgia Duder portrays her with such flamboyance and high comic style?

Crossing her eyes as she folds the washing, snapping her long legs crossed and contorting her body into model poses, she is like a hyperactive child playing at being a vamp.

The tipsy duo are joined by Amy-Lee, an upwardly mobile Baptist, dripping poison in sugary tones, beautifully played by Romiley Gorringe.

Lone Star takes place in the dreary backyard of the local bar and comedy has given way to raw realism.

Roy, now married to Elizabeth, confesses that war made him mean and he just can't settle.

His younger brother Ray worships him, though Roy's halo tarnishes as he revels in tales of war atrocities and his years of drunken whoring.

Roy is played by David Dengelo with style and energy, but Ray, as portrayed by Jarrod Lahman with broad Kiwi vowels, comes across as a sub-Dubya.

It beggars belief that Elizabeth, even in her hours of greatest need, could have coupled with him, particularly on the kitchen table.

And it might be an idea for Greg Ward, as the even nerdier Cletis, to invest in a packet of Camels rather than a cigarette packet with current health warnings prominently displayed.