Much of it is extremely dated, but Paula Vogel’s “The Mineola Twins,” still shows wit and attitude, and her ability to painfully scald boring social conventions, like Long Island suburbs, and political points of view with which she does not agree.
The comedy opened last night as the second play of Muddy Waters Theatre’s 2011 season, dedicated to the works of Vogel (“The Baltimore Waltz” ran in March, “How I Learned to Drive” is scheduled for November). Patty Ulrich is slick as the twins, Myrna and Myra, identical except for one (or two) small (or not-so-small) things.
The other actors double, too, with Jamie Marble quite good as Jim and Sarah, and Andrew Kuhlman satisfactory as Kenny and Ben. The play, which had its premiere in 1996, is set in three periods, the Eisenhower administration, the Nixon administration and the first Bush administration, and the politically active Vogel has plenty of paint with which to daub each.
Myrna is the “good” twin, wanting to be a homemaker, a wife and a mother, all in the Long Island suburbs of Mineola, Levittown and Great Neck; Myra is the “bad” one, offering up her virginity to the entire high school football team, then seducing her sister’s boy friend for good measure.
Myrna goes off to the right, Myra to the left, over the nearly 40 years the play covers, and material that might have been very shocking in 1996 (though “very” probably was too strong a word even then) isn’t in today’s world. Each rears a son (both played by Kuhlman) who rebels against his mother and receives help from is aunt who, of course, does not speak ton her twin sister.
There’s a problem with the staging, too. As originally written and produced, the changes from one character to another were made on stage, designed (or choreographed) to be part of the show’s humor. For whatever reason, director Cameron Ulrich does not do that here, resulting in some overlong blackouts between scenes.
It’s a tribute to Vogel’s writing that the play continues to draw the laughter it does.
The Mineola Twins, produced by the Muddy Waters Theatre, opened yesterday at the Kranzberg Arts Center and will run through June 26
—Joe