Ripped From the Headlines: Mustang Sally Gives its All

While I’m always hesitant to be overly critical of any show just for the mere fact that I’ve been there myself and gotten a good slamming; it should be noted that the show that’s running at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks, “Mustang Sally,” has a number of non-homogeneous factors, flying in from the cosmos which could have been slightly tweaked to make a more cohesive production.

Being a playwright, I always first blame the writer. The actors, directors, and everyone else live and die by the playwright’s pen and a playwright, no matter the deadline, production schedule, or timeliness of things should never rush something to production. This is what Mustang Sally seems to be suffering from; “propelled by insomnia, I stumble to my computer in the middle of the night to probe these events in depth. Then, with facts, imagination, and some passion, I build a play to share what I’ve discovered,” says Linda Felton Steinbaum in the Playwrights Notes section of the program. Ms. Felton-Steinbaum seems to have gotten the essence of this topical matter, but the devil is in the details and she has grossly misfired on a number of the details.

There were even moments where this whole piece may have redeemed itself; just before the curtain drops, one of the characters comes on and gives a startling, albeit predictable revelation which shifts the whole tenor of the piece. If this character had just left the stage and left us all with the horrific thought about people’s subtext or motives or underlying primary objective, I might have thought differently of it, in hindsight. However, much to my chagrin, this character then goes into excessive detail; we didn’t need to hear all of that

But let’s take this play from the start. To begin with, the audience is served a fair bit of staging from the second you take your seat in The Whitefire Theatre’s Ventura Blvd Stage. Made up of pastels; blues, pinks, yellows; the set looks like a child’s playpen. There is a prominent Justin Timberlake poster in the kitchen and there is a tiny patio table for a main kitchen centerpiece. The refrigerator (from which a steady stream of beer is produced for the adult, male characters in the show) is adorned with playful looking magnets and everywhere there are stuffed animals lying about. This is the protagonist’s world and when we first meet Kathy; the main character around which all the action in this show moves; we immediately understand why.

Kathy is a young teacher in her 20’s who is having a major crisis. While the urgency is apparent; she relents, talking about blasé non-events rather than digging in to the meat of the issue. While this is done, no doubt, to Raise The Stakes, the character Kathy seems disinterested. In everything! While some may blame the director or the actors choices, the words she says say it all.

There is an entire side story with the mother and sister; they don’t get along. While their catty bickering is entertaining, the subtext seems to be that this young woman’s broken home justifies her juvenile actions…Which they are just about to reveal. In a minute.

Apparently Kathy has dabbled in her young student’s lunch box and was caught out in it. Kathy has fallen in love and “you can’t control who you fall in love with.” Which is a very sweet sentiment but this is the whole problem with this fanatical character and her appeals.

Mary Kay Letourneau is one of the more infamous of the teacher/student relation episodes from 1996. Her sneaking around and sleeping with her student wasn’t at all a believable situation; just because what happened with her happened in real life doesn’t make this play any more viable. And she got pregnant; twice. And she went to jail and is still in jail. But this plays ending just makes the whole point moot; they seem to be leading to a dramatic arc for the teacher at the end; but it turns into a slap on the wrist much more reminiscent of the more recent Debra Lafave episode.

This Kathy seems a little too self aware and everyone around her does as well. You’d figure that with some of the warning signs fired off by this person, any real adults with any interest in their friend or family members well being would have intervened. Live and let live and all that but when it comes to entanglements with a teenager? You really need to step into the mix. For example, there is this art teacher friend of hers who plays the only sympathetic line in the whole show. When he comes on and talks with her sister about the situation he says, “She relates to kids even more than parents.” …!!!! While he gave a bravo performance, is that really the position that someone who cared about someone else would take? I’d think that no matter what kind of a pushover he was, he would be driven to action before this point.

Even sis says to her man, “Kathy always has had a vivid imagination.” The implication being that ‘maybe this whole thing didn’t even happen.’ Really? Is that the answer? Don blinders? Especially interesting is the older sisters assumption of the mother role; limiting contact that the real mother has with the daughter, plotting a course of action, sending the younger sister to her room; while some of these are interesting choices, her division seems to fall split down the middle. For example sis shares all sorts of complex details about the trial with her accused and yet she can’t even chose what to wear when she wants to leave the house!

Kathy seems to be played as a girl split in two; on the one hand she needs the bail process explained to her by sisters lawyer boyfriend but then in the same breath she is able to parse from their conversation, seemingly from nowhere, “Do they think I’m a FLIGHT RISK?”

Kathy’s behavior is also conspicuous towards her purple tights/leopard print wrap/bible thumping mother. The argument, towards the end of this play, has been going round and round when suddenly, from nowhere, Kathy gets up on her pulpit and quoth scripture (lines which have not been present elsewhere) shocking everyone in the room.

The real proof happens in the end. “Is everyone gossiping about me,” she asks her art teacher friend, to which he replies that they’ve been instructed not to talk about it. Kathy seems very let down about it. When news jumps across the wire that: 1) everything is going to be okay 2) there will be no trial and 3) Kathy won’t be listed as a sex predator, this is where the show turns hyper-real.

It would seem that if you were trying to write a real play “ripped from the headlines,” that you may want to lead your end to real consequences; not a fluff puff ending which ties together disparate ends yet leaves the only one who deserves it, not holding the bag of responsibility.