The Players’ production differs from the usually seen oral interpretative Readers Theater one. Director Carole Kleinberg uses a “star” guide and two mothers with four more actresses playing various characters to further dramatize life stories of women. Each phase is characterized by memories of dress donned during the action or advice-taking, hence the title Love, Loss, and What I Wore. Jeffrey Weber works with the director’s blocking to supply an attractive set of shifting backgrounds showing child-like drawings of women in different clothes. He fills the stage with risers and cubes from which the actresses speak supporting lines or come downstage to deliver major memories. Ethan Vail’s lighting, often projecting thematic colors, keeps the atmosphere fresh. Josh Linderman’s sound design is just right. Alana Opie nicely handles the pivotal role of Gingy, whose life stages (and best remembered childhood clothes) typify those of the other women from childhood to the end of middle age. Sandra Musicante as Mother 1 and Trudie Kesler as Mother 2 stand out as older and (usually) wiser guides to good living and loving, even with their own failings and humorous advice about what to wear (neat clothes) or not (stripes with plaids, white after Memorial Day but not after Labor day, etc.). All the other actresses suitably portray a variety of friends and enemies, gaudy and tailored, fat and thin, high or low heeled, loving or hating their purses. Possibly the most universal of their concerns are with their first bra, prom dress, and wedding ware. Their concern with “The Gang Sweater” occupies one of the few segments that lack application to women from other than New York and environs. I feel that’s a fault of the script; it’s too regional and often thinks it’s not. Not even a creative director from the urban Midwest could overcome that problem through the whole show.
