Love, Loss, and What I Wore takes you on a beautiful, poignant, funny, and nostalgic journey into the feminine soul. It is very much like sitting down with your best female friends, in your most comfy clothes, listening to their innermost thoughts and feelings. This story, as told by Sally Struthers, Kim Coles, Joyce Reehling, Olivia Rose Barresi and Ashley Brooke, carries you along and touches the deepest parts of your heart, mind and soul; reminding us how beautifully complicated life can be.
There is no better place to see this play than the intimate setting of the Hannah Center at O’Neal School in Southern Pines. The actors are merely yards away, and it adds to the raw intimacy of the monologue. The set is just five chairs, accompanying stands, and the clothing sketches. As the cast pull up their chairs, dressed in black, sitting side by side, they deliver a brilliant monologue allowing us to not only see but really feel the depth of their emotion through their voice and their expression.
Joyce Reehling, Left, Olivia Rose Barresi and Ashley Brooke (Photo by Sayer Photography).
Struthers’s Gingy uses sketches of clothing as a portal into her past describing each article in detail as she tells of events that shaped her life. Just as long-ago memories come rushing back with an olfactory rush of a scent, for many women, the clothes impart the same. You remember the dress you wore to your prom, your wedding, a bad date, and when some clothes were just a bad idea.
The journey takes you through a favorite childhood dress, and the ugly one your mother made you wear. We hear the outrage and shock that you can only find in front of a dressing room mirror. Our heart smiles at the weddings and breaks with the loss of a child. Through it all, these five women continue on showing us wisdom, strength, and resilience, even when their heart is at its most fragile.
Love, Loss and What I Wore, presented by Judson Theatre, based off the book written by Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron, should be on your must-see this weekend. Judson Theatre has once again brought their very best. Now you need to bring yours. Call your best girl friends, sisters, mothers and make it a date. What you will share and experience will touch your hearts. Bet years from now, you will remember who went with you and what you wore.
Shows are Friday at 8 p.m.; sold out, Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m.
To purchase tickets, please click on link: JudsonTheatre.com
Feature photo: Sally Struthers, Left, and Kim Coles (Photo by Sayer Photography).
