Theatre Review—

Another Terrific Tribute To Country Music’s Angels

By Julie Stern

BRIDGEPORT — “It wasn’t God who made Honky Tonk angels / Like they say in the words of the song / Some married men who forget they’re not still single/ And cause many poor girls to go wrong…” (or something like that)

Ted Swindley, the author of the very successful Always… Patsy Cline, has written and directed another tribute to country music, in particular such great women artists as Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and Bobby Gentry, for Bridgeport’s Downtown Cabaret.

Working with the theme of the gutsy gal who leaves an unsatisfactory life situation to follow her dream to Nashville, Mr Swindley has come up with three archetypal characters: Angela, the Texas housewife who grows tired of living in a double wide trailer with three rowdy kids and a husband who doesn’t come home nights; Darlene, a coal miner’s daughter who lives down in the Mississippi delta, caring for her ailing, widowed daddy; and Sue Ellen, a twice-divorced transplanted Texan working nine to five as a secretary to a lecherous tyrant in L.A.

To the accompaniment of a first class six-piece country western band, the first act uses about a dozen all time hits to define the characters – from “Stand By Your Man” and “Coal Miner’s Daughter” to “Ode to Billy Joe” and “These Boots Were Made for Walking.” The ladies meet by chance on a Greyhound bus to Nashville and resolve to join forces and form a group, The Honky Tonk Angels.

In the second act, decked out in glitz and big hair, the Angels put on a concert at Honky Tonk Heaven, playing up the dichotomy between good girls and bad, that comprises the substance of so much country music.

The three principals — Tiffany Eaves as Darlene, Jamie Danielle Jackson as Sue Ellen, and especially Darlene Bel Grayson as Angela — are really talented, combining droll comic gift with the kind of haunting and powerful voices that would make a 400-mile car ride across night-time Texas bearable.

The one complaint I would make would be about the anti-Clintonian references to Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers. These were unnecessary and unpleasant signals of election year partisanship, and they only detracted from an otherwise appealing celebration of American southern culture.

As a show, Honky Tonk Angels is far more than bearable. In fact, it is delightful (especially if you enjoy country music, as this reviewer does). Certainly the audience had a stompin’ good time, and was really sorry to see the evening end. We could have sat through several more hours of non-stop entertainment.

(Performances continue through August 6; tickets are $28 to $30. Contact Downtown Cabaret Theatre at 203/576-1636 for directions, reservations, or other information).