November 17-20, 2016
“The Cemetery Club”
By Ivan Menchell
*Reservations Requested
The Cemetery Club. It is the story of three widows in Forest Hills, Queens. They are the surviving half of three sets of long time best friends. Each of whom is in a different stage of healing and moving on with her life. Once a month the three women – Doris, Ida and Lucille – meet to pay their respects to their husbands, who are all buried in the same cemetery.
Doris is content to have loved her husband well and seeks nothing more than simply to go on remembering him. Lucille appears to quickly have dismissed the loss of her late husband and hungrily searches for a new man. She flaunts the men on her arm with hopes that her philandering late husband sees that she has moved on without him. No doubt Doris would contentedly visit the cemetery every day, but Lucille declares “I refuse to continue to be a part of a club where half the members are dead!” Ida is in the middle of these two opposites. She recounts how her husband always loved coming home to her home cooked meals, and how she spent the first few months after his death numbly cooking elaborate meals for the husband that would never come home to her again.
When Ida spends time with a widower named Sam, she wonders if she may be ready to open her heart to a second chance at love. The two find a connection that is soon torn asunder by Ida’s meddling friends. Though meaning well, Lucille and Doris decide that Ida is not ready for this budding relationship. They warn off Sam, who respectfully retreats without telling Ida why. When Sam appears at the wedding of a mutual friend with a glamorous and slightly younger widow named Mildred, sparks fly. Ida is hurt, and Lucille and Doris confess their interference. After a mild cat fight, complete with drinks thrown in faces, Ida, Lucille and Doris each more intently view their journey as single women.
After the wedding, we learn that Lucille, despite her bravado, has not been able to be sexually intimate with another man since her husband. His unfaithful adventures have left a part of her doubting that she was “good enough.” The women are bound together by their hurt, their healing and the discovery that they are more alike than they believed. Though Ida regains her chance at love with Sam, she losses her dear friend Doris, who unexpectedly passes away the day after the wedding. For those remaining, life goes on. It is a story of emotional strength and endurance.
The Cemetery Club has been compared by many to the play Steel Magnolias.
17th-19th Shows are at 7:00pm
20th Show is at 2:00pm
Cocktail Hour Starts at 1:00pm/6:00pm
All performances are at Madonna Hall located 1793 Elm Ave., Wabeno, WI located behind St. Ambrose Catholic Church. For reservations please call (715) 889-1606 or (715) 473-5466.
Email: wabenoareaplayers@gmail.com
Wabeno Area Players Present…
