Two women
are in love with the same man. Sound familiar?
But what if
all three are advanced in years? What if the two women
are very different from each other — not only in
their manner of dress, but in their personalities as
well?
This play
offers three excellent roles for mature actors. Audiences
love it!
One exterior,
1 m / 2 f
The
Lansing Beat
by Rosemary Block
"…
draws fresh ideas from the familiar situation of the
eternal triangle. The prize-winning Lansing playwright
shows the universal need of human beings to give and
receive love through his study of the relationships
among the play's three characters. What is new in his
treatment of this theme is the age of the characters,
which is somewhere in their fifties and sixties. Also
unusual is the conclusion drawn from the climax that
the most enduring and regenerative love of all is what
the characters call "giving love," that is
unselfish, unconditional love, rather than romantic
love.
"Set
entirely on the back courtyard of a triangular-shaped
traditional white triple apartment house, the plot turns
on the effect a new male tenant, Orley Summers (played
by Carlton Peters), has on the ten year relationship
between the two women tenants, widow Nola Gordon (Bee
Vary) and divorcee Mavis Ferguson (Marilyn Steegstra).
Each woman eventually becomes involved romantically
with Orley, despite the very opposite intentions they
express early in the first scene while anticipating
his arrival. (Nola plans to remain distant, while Mavis
schemes to become close.) The growth of their relationships
with Orley strains their friendship to a nearly terminal
break. In the end, however, the bond between friends
proves to be more lasting than the bond between lovers."
World Premiere
The Okemos Barn Theatre
Lansing, MI
March, 1984
