The Dixie Swim Club

Despite the chill of this January evening, The Grange Players brought a certain warmth and vivacity to the stage for their audience, with a performance of The Dixie Swim Club thanks to a sharp script, splendid acting and superb direction.

The first 20 minutes of the play raised few laughs from the audience. The characters were joking with each other, but they were not laughing at each other’s jokes or responding to each other’s barbed comments. The volume seemed low at the start and some words were hard to hear. Fortunately, when Lexie and Sherrie started arguing over an old flame, the punch lines started hitting the funny bone. From this point the play took off and the audience enjoyed the play immensely.

The five ladies gave a virtuosa display of team acting; the characters, (five southern women whose friendships began many years ago on their college swim team) worked effortlessly with each other and their reactions and interplay were a constant delight; an absorbing and touching comedy about friendships that last forever.

Every August they meet up for a long weekend to recharge those relationships. Free from husbands, kids and jobs, they meet up at the same beach house. This play focuses on four of those weekends and spans a period of 33 years.

The simple set was dressed sufficiently to provide detail of a very comfortable living room of a beach cottage on the outer banks of North Carolina, helped by a back cloth of the ocean and atmospheric lighting, suitably bright and credited to lighting designed by Stan Vigurs. Sound design was expertly designed by Colin Mears and Rachel Waters, who incorporated realistic rumblings of an imminent storm at the close of the play. Whilst the wind appeared to suggest a threatening storm, the doors of the property which remained open for the last scene, remained quite still.

Kerry Jones played Sheree with great stage presence and confidence. She delivered each line with expression and presented a sparky character that was upbeat and assertive at times as team captain of The Dixie Swim Club. She revelled in the role of leader of the group, providing order and purpose. Ruth Bosman’s interpretation of Lexie, a gutsy woman with an insatiable appetite for getting married repeatedly was credit worthy. When Lexie started to fall out with these friends in one scene, sparks flew in her spats. Later during a scene with Dinah, she showed us a more vulnerable aspect of her character as she was coming to terms with her illness and faced an uncertain future. Sharing her secret with Dinah these characters presented the audience with a performance of depth and quality. Kay Munday portrayed the role of Dinah as a high-powered lawyer, and whilst she gave the impression she was composed, independent and successful in her life, the frustrations of her personal life became increasingly more transparent. She did enjoy her drinks. Kay delivered this character with just the right air of self-assurance. Joanne James endeared herself to the audience as Vernadette, who seem to launch herself on entry in each scene, generating hilarity as she hurried to the toilet with an anguished look of losing bladder control. Her facial expressions, animated gestures gave her character a relaxed manner that matched her laissez faire approach to life. Joanne performed this part so well. Towards the end of Scene 1 we met another member of the team, Jerri Neal who transformed her life being a nun to become a heavily pregnant woman, arriving at the beach house to everyone’s surprise. Louise presented this part as a gentle, easy going, unruffled individual who embraced her new life.

Although ostensibly a comedy, this play offered a penetrating look at life, and it is to the enormous credit of the cast and crew and masterful direction of Rachel Waters that they balanced all the emotional subtleties of the piece so well. The laughs are loud, but they never eclipsed the reflection and growing self-awareness of five women through a passage of time. Well done to all, especially to Ruth and Joanne, who learnt their parts in just 5 weeks.

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