www2.JournalNow.com – By Mary Martin Niepold – Special to The Journal
Leave it to playwright Del Shores to dish up folks dealing with death, adultery, homophobia, shotguns, crossdressing, a mental institution and a funeral. The result: laughs as familiar as the tuna casserole brought to the grieving family. Sordid Lives opened Friday night at Theatre Alliance to a packed and happy house.
Laughs are inevitable in this return engagement for a wacky look at one Texas family whose members include: a gay grandson, a crossdressing son, a daughter who’s a prude, another daughter who totes a pistol, and a sister who’s trying to quit smoking. We meet them after the family matriarch died by hitting her head on the sink in a local motel when she tripped over the wooden legs of her lover who happens to be the husband of one of her daughter’s best friends.