by Beulah F. Vega

Napa County’s Valley Players presents the Jones Hope Wooten comedy The Savannah Sipping Society at the Rutherford Grange through March 15. Directed by Debbie Baumann, this look at women of a certain age brings a perspective often missing from the stages around our area. 

Middle-aged Randa Covington (Christina Julian)  finds herself alone and jobless in Savannah. To pass the time, she joins a hot yoga class that does not go as planned but leads to her meeting Dot (Randi Storm) and Marlafaye (Mellene Miller). When Dot invites Life Coach Jinx (Esmé Nicolson-Singh) to meet the others for drinks on Randa’s veranda, the Savannah Sipping Society is born.

There is some good work here. Miller delivers a strong performance as the headstrong Texan who moved to Savannah to escape her cheating ex-husband.  Nicolson-Singh gives Jinx a grounded believability that builds to a beautiful pathos in her final monologue. 

The set by Rhonda Bowen is beautiful, well-designed, and well-suited for the small space. 

Though the script could be quite hilarious and, for the most part, the cast hit the puns and one-liners, they never reached the level needed to keep the comedy consistent. There were obvious line issues, leaving awkward pauses on stage, which robbed the plot of the pacing it needed.

There was also the issue of the dialects. All four characters come from very different parts of the country. Randa is the only Georgian, while Marlafaye is a Texan, Dot is from Oklahoma, and it’s never clearly established exactly where Jinx is from, but it’s not Georgia; yet, to varying degrees, all four fell into the Steel Magnolias trap of exaggerated Georgian. While the dialects impacted the performance as a whole, Julian’s dialect was so exaggerated that it took over her lines and stage presence, making it harder to sympathize with Randa. 

Overall, while Baumann’s clear stage pictures and Bowen’s beautiful set are evidence of the quality of the work possible from this little theater troupe, the dialects derail a lot of it, which is sad because women of a certain age don’t get the spotlight as often as they should.

Hopefully, the line issues will improve, and the dialects will get dialed down, so that the charm and comedy of the story these women are telling will shine through more clearly, because middle-aged women do have valid stories to tell and deserve to be center stage just as much as anyone else. 

Valley Players presents ‘The Savannah Sipping Society’ through March 15 at the Rutherford Grange Hall, 8550 St Helena Hwy, Napa. Fri & Sat, 7:00pm.  Sun, 2pm. $27–$30. 866.710.8942. www.valley-players.com/