Tupperware Drama Melts Down

Sealed for Freshness, a play written and directed by Doug Stone, fails to use humor effectively to underline the tribulations of five women living in a typical Midwest suburb in 1968.

The women-housewife Bonnie (Jennifer Dorr White), budding salesperson Jean (Nancy Hornback), Jean's pregnant sister Sinclair (J.J. Van Name), trophy wife Tracy (Kate VanDevender), and Tupperware salesperson Diane (Patricia Dalen)-gather together for that token ritual of suburbia, a Tupperware party.

As they get tipsy, it becomes apparent that all the women have secrets. These secrets are revealed as their patience for each other is tested in the two-hour play. However, two hours proves too long for a show that lacks a strong focus on conflict and instead concentrates on jokes.

The humor in Sealed for Freshness travels roads already trodden by 13-year-olds. Indeed, the script would need to be much more subtle to earn the laughs that it desires. Every line appears to be a punch line, but without good set-ups, there is no room for the audience to absorb them.

After all the references to dilating vaginas and dislocated testicles, attempts at seriousness fail badly. Jokes fill the first 45 minutes, and by the time Diane reveals her secret, the flat humor that precedes her anguished confession has snuffed any available sympathy.

Fair acting almost makes the play endurable. White and Bonnie's husband Richard (Brian Dykstra), who is the cast's lone male, connect well in their scenes together. Their interplay is funny and quick. At one point, he drops a sandwich, which he was not supposed to eat, on the floor, and she swoops to pick it up and pull a hair from it. When she snaps her fingers to command him to sit, he flinches like a dog getting smacked with a newspaper.

Despite their chemistry, however, it would have been better to sacrifice that teamwork so that White could be more active with the other ladies. After all, the play is set in Bonnie's house, and she is on stage with the other ladies more than she is with her husband. In the scenes without Richard, Bonnie does little and has the fewest lines of the women. While the others trade barbs and tell stories about their lives, she sits there, easy for the audience to ignore.

Hornback, as Jean, gestures well, with the stiff arms of a would-be salesperson, but these movements are ultimately too stiff.

Van Name's heavy footsteps and cocky tilt of the head as Sinclair garnered the most attention. She stood as the most prominent comic character and delivered her lines with an eye toward the audience, as if on a sitcom.

VanDevender, as the ditzy Tracy, has the most fluid body movements of the cast, and she proves to be a highlight. She speaks in a 10-year-old's squeaky voice, adding a sense of innocence to her raunchy punch lines. "You learn to breathe through your nose," she says in a fellatio joke, one of the few genuinely funny moments in a play sorely in need of them.