Expert Actresses, Dated ‘Daughters’

The pleasure of Del Shore’s “Daughters of the Lone Star State” at the Zephyr is that it’s a chance to see a first-rate team of mature actresses strut their stuff. The pain is, it’s just a sitcomesque formula drama with a dated message.

“Daughters of the Lone Star State” is the third part of the playwright’s Lowake, Tex., trilogy that began with “Cheatin’,” a 1984 comedy about adultery, and “Daddy’s Dyin’, Who’s Got the Will?” (1987), a mildly funny satire about buying the farm that was made into a movie with Beau Bridges. This ditty zeros in on a charity club full of cackling, oil-monied white women and the racism that flies when a couple of new--non-rich and non-white--members try to join up.

Nine of the 11 actresses in this cast are over 55 years old, according to the press materials, and they’re nearly all expert--especially Lu Leonard as the testy Liddy Bell, Gloria Le Roy as mixed-up Mildred and Carole Cook as the damaged Darlene. The younger members of the ensemble are weaker, but they’re struggling with underwritten roles.

Ron Link keeps these golden girls trotting to the right places on stage, making the most of the talent. But he can only do so much with a passel of pat characterizations (the rich bitch who drinks; the “white trash” hausfrau; the snippy old-maid sisters) and predictable prejudices. Fact is, the genre this writer’s been plowing for the better part of a decade now is, as they might say in Lowake, a dog that don’t hunt anymore.

*’Daughters of the Lone Star State,” Zephyr Theatre, 7456 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood . Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m., Sundays 3 p.m. Runs indefinitely. $18.50-$20. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 2 hours.