Theatre Review

Star Power Keeps Romantic Comedy Afloat
Southern Comforts is Lightweight but Enjoyable

Review by Mary Damiano

Love is lovelier the second time around…

Those lyrics are put to the test in Kathleen Clark’s romantic comedy Southern Comforts, now playing at the Coconut Grove Playhouse.

While the script is slight and more suited to a TV movie than live theatre, the saving grace is the stars: real life husband and wife Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter, who both bring warmth and depth to essentially cookie cutter characters.

	Southern Comforts, now playing at the Coconut Grove Playhouse

Carter plays Amanda, a Tennessee widow, and Holbrook plays Gus, a small-town New Jersey widower.  The two meet in Gus’s hometown while Amanda is visiting her daughter and grandchildren, who live nearby.  The two are attracted to each other in church and get to know each other on little outings.  When the subject of marriage comes up, the two talk the subject to death, going over the pros and cons and the adjustments and compromises each will have to make.  This is one of the shortcomings of the play, because any two people who talk that much about marriage would clearly see that they’re wrong for each other.  Beautiful Amanda is a strong free spirit with a creative bent who wants to spend some of her golden years traveling. Curmudgeonly Gus is so set in his ways and hates anything new, so much so that except for a stint in the service, he’s never lived more than a few yards from the place he was born. 

The star power and real life chemistry shared by Holbrook and Carter are what saves the script and makes you believe that somehow, these two opposites can make it work.

The other facets of the production are right on the mark.  Thomas Lynch’s two-story house set is appropriately weathered, just like Gus, while Jane Greenwood’s costumes enhance Amanda’s elegant beauty.  Leonard Foglia’s direction sticks to the subtleties of the characters, even during one edge-of-your-seat bit of physical comedy.

South Florida’s more senior audiences will enjoy the complications of love found late in life, and people of all ages will enjoy watching old pros Holbrook and Carter doing terrific work.  Slight as it is, Southern Comforts is a crowd pleaser and a pleasant enough way to spend two hours at the theatre.