Monday, October 14, 1996
THEATER:
An endearing play portrays three friends and their journey of
self-discoveryBy Alicia Cheak
Daily Bruin Contributor
Remember those high school vows between friends to stick
together and never change? Then they begin college, experience
different things and the sentiments which they once shared sadly
diverge on different routes. And just when they’ve settled into
university life and adapted to their friends’ oddities, they have
to make another change  this time into the world. They can’t
help but renew those pledges of constancy and loyalty to one
another.
"Vanities," currently running at the MET Theater, is set in the
’70s and captures three crucial scenes in the lives of three
friends, tracing the dissolution of their collective ambitions to
their emergence as individuals who occupy disparate and unexpected
roles as women in society.
The play is enjoyable to watch for its humor and contemplative
treatment of the process of growing up. There are many moments of
frivolity, but this often adds to the comedy of the play or serves
to make a point about the characters.
"Vanities" opens amidst a cheerleading practice as the girls,
Mary, Kathy and Joanne prepare for the homecoming game. Their
itineraries do not go beyond the archetypal cheerleader concerns
 games, parties, boyfriends and the venerated position of
homecoming queen. They are only going to college because their
boyfriends are, and their major anxieties are about their status
once they get there and the dread of having to build their
reputations.
What is interesting is that while these "important" issues are
discussed, the principal announces over the loud speaker that
President JFK has been shot. But even this information fails to
penetrate the girls’ cocoon. Joanne even mistakes the school
president as the one who has been shot, but because the incident
did not pose a threat to the football game that night, all concerns
for it are dropped. And when a summary of important events is
broadcasted (eg. the advent of Martin Luther King’s movement), the
girls undermine its significance by powdering their noses, putting
on their make-up for their presentation to the audience.
What is clear is the apparent unanimity between these three
friends, and with the reality of graduation and college
approaching, they promise to stick close to each other by planning
to share the same dorm room and pledging into the same
sororities.
Scene 2 takes us to the end of their senior year in college.
Their cheerleading uniforms have been removed and the women are
adorned in distinct garments  hinting at their diverging
personalities. The Vietnam War is stirring up controversy and yet
the women are clearly oblivious of, or perhaps indifferent to, the
demonstrations on campus. Rather, the pressing concerns are the
future of Kappa Kappa Gamma. Joanne’s stringent rule is "no flower
people, no pot and no guitar players."
But despite the frivolities, we are aware of the gulf between
the friends when they express their different opinions. Joanne is
about to be married and is content with a future as a homemaker.
Mary, the "wild and over-sexed" one, has plans to escape to Rome
after graduation, in hopes of becoming chic. It is only Kathy who
discloses, after much persuasion, the want of direction in her
life.
The pledge to one another is renewed and the promise to get
together every Wednesday thereafter suppresses the anxieties and
insecurities for the moment.
Six years later, the women are reunited. Mary is now the owner
of a pornographic gallery, Joanne has four children and a skeptical
Kathy just housesits a lover’s apartment and has nothing to do but
stare into the stars and think about death. This time, no simple
reconciliation occurs.
The women have diverged, their vastly different clothing
testifying to its severity. There is only a sense of
meaninglessness, a sadness for not getting what they expected
(although those goals are never articulated) out of life. After
Joanne storms out of the tea-party, a toast is made between the
remaining two, not in remembrance of the earlier, simpler times,
but in an attempt to forget them.
Although the play takes place in the late ’70s, it deals with
sentiments, experiences and questions that are still embedded in
the lives of high school students, college seniors and those who
have made the transition into the world to discover  perhaps
 that where they presently are looks nothing like what they
had anticipated. And while the majority of the play centers on the
trivial concerns of these three women, there are brief but poignant
interludes, where their real emotions and insecurities emerge.
Many viewers might not be the most popular person in school, nor
possess the exaggerated sensibilities of these three women, but the
fear of change, and of facing it alone, pushes the audience, as it
did the three women, to hang on to present relationships  all
the while, trying to find a common strain amidst the rise of
differences. These moments of honesty are cleverly delivered as the
actors bring their characters out of foolishness and into talking
seriously. The lighting on stage dims and parallels the shift in
the tone of the conversation. It is a moment audience members can
empathize with.
In the intimate setting of a room which seats only 50 people,
the audience is able to grasp the emotions (when they do appear)
from the actors. The actors work with a broad range of feelings;
from silliness, to sincerity, to sarcasm, to rage, to despair, and
delivers these emotions smoothly.
Shannon Hile, who plays Kathy, has by far the more difficult
task of moving from a self-assured head cheerleader to a skeptical,
disillusioned adult. Jodi Wise gives a strong and convincing
performance as the fallen woman, Joanne, and Leslie Windram (Mary)
is consistently funny, especially in the last scene where she gets
drunk and forsakes all inhibitions. Though seemingly the one with
the perfect life, she also has many disappointments.
"Vanities" was delightful to watch because it was filled with
sentiments that are easy to relate to. While it has its share of
laughs as the plot follows the self-absorbed individuals through
three acts, the hollowness underlying the vanities and its
consequences are also striking components.
The most enduring aspect of the play is the sense of loss, be it
the loss of childish vows, of friendship, of faith, of integrity as
these three women search for an identity, or perhaps the gradual
awakening to the fact that they don’t have one. It is a fear
especially for those of us still trying to peel through the
childish make-up of younger days to figure out our roles in the
world.
THEATER: "Vanities" runs at the MET Theater in Hollywood, 1089
North Oxford Ave., through Oct. 19. TIX: $15. For more info, call
(213) 957-1741.
Jodi Wise, Leslie Windram and Shannon Hile play three women who
pledge their devotion and come through for each other in
"Vanities."