Theater Review - Honeymoon’s Over

In the first scene of ART Station’s melancholy romance See Rock City, newlyweds Raleigh (Geoff Uterhardt) and May (Barbara Cole) declare themselves to be the luckiest people in the world. Audience members wait for a shoe the size of Lookout Mountain to drop.

Having its world premiere at ART Station, See Rock City serves as a sequel to playwright Arlene Hutton’s Last Train to Nibroc, which played at ART Station in 2002 (and also featured Cole as May). Set in rural Kentucky during World War II, both plays follow the couple’s loving, bittersweet relationship, with Nibroc being more sweet, and See Rock City more bitter.

The play begins with the young marrieds returning from their honeymoon, cheerfully recounting bland anecdotes about not making it to their intended destination, Rock City. But as the months pass, the bloom goes off the rose. Aspiring writer Raleigh becomes increasingly haunted by his epilepsy: Despite the mild symptoms, the disease prevents him from serving in the armed forces or driving a car.

Uterhardt (Cole’s husband offstage as well) replaces Nibroc’s laid-back Jeremy Cudd, and brings a tightly wound tension to the role that well suits Raleigh’s mounting frustrations. Cole conveys the depth of May’s conflicted feelings, giving heft and texture to a character that could seem merely a flighty schoolmarm.

The play features plenty of homespun humor about porches, cooking and other Southern customs, and Michael Hidalgo’s quaint set looks almost like a dollhouse version of a rural cottage. The play never settles for a kitschy portrayal of Dixie, though. Karen Howell initially plays the backwoods piety of Raleigh’s proudly Baptist mother for laughs, but gradually reveals the woman’s harsher qualities when she dismisses both her son’s condition and his writing career as signs of “laziness.”

Darker and more substantial than Last Train to Nibroc, See Rock City provides an unconventional perspective on the wartime South and difficulties faced by civilians - especially women - when the soldiers returned. Hutton concludes ?See Rock City with a moving, open-ended image that leaves us hoping she revisits the couple one final time.

Curt.Holman@creativeloafing.com

See Rock City plays through April 2 at ART Station, 5384 Manor Drive, Stone Mountain. Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. $19-$25. 770-469-1105. www.artstation.org.??