WAITING IN THE WINGS


Dames don’t get any grander than the grandes dames taking centerstage at Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Waiting In The Wings, Noël Coward’s charming 1960 salute to actresses of a certain age who’ve still got it in them to hold an audience spellbound.

Straitened circumstances have forced veteran stage star Lotta Bainbridge (Susan Angelo) to move into “The Wings,” the charitable home for retired actresses over 60 where her longtime nemesis May Davenport (Jan Wikstrom) has resided these past few years as have such former stage greats (and not-so-greats) as Bonita Belgrave (Katherine Griffith), Cora Clarke (Cynthia Kania), Maud Melrose (Jane Macfie), Almina Clare (Gini Autumn Benson), Estelle Craven (Michele Schultz), Deirdre O’Malley (Earnestine Phillips), and Sarita Myrtle (Ellen Geer), all of whom await the arrival of the glamorous Lotta except Sarita, whose mind has been lost to dementia.

How will May react when she learns that her arch enemy will soon be living under the same roof? Will she continue giving Lotta the same cold shoulder she’s been giving her since the 1930s? And what could have prompted the dissolution of a once devoted friendship? Could there have been a man involved in said rupture?

To find out the answers to these questions (and to get to know some of the feistiest and most fabulous retirees ever to have trod the boards), you only have to head on over to Theatricum Botanicum, where a witty script, scene-stealing performances, and Willow Geer’s inspired direction make the play’s two-hour-forty-five-minute running time a lot less daunting than it might seem on paper.

Also figuring in the delightful mix are retirement home superintendent Sylvia Archibald (Miranda Heath), aka Miss Archie;  pot-stirring reporter Zelda Fenwick (Isabel Stallings), who’s shown up incognito to write a puff piece (or will it be an exposé?) about The Wings; and Osgood Meeker (Tim Sabourin), an elderly gent who pops by from time to time to visit a resident who’s neither seen nor heard.

There’s also Alan Bennet (Billy Walker), the adult son Lotta hasn’t seen since his move to Canada seventeen years ago along with kind-hearted maid Doreen (Natalia Joffre), Lotta’s efficient personal maid Dora (Offir Mashiah), and a certain Doctor Jevons (Asa Fris).

Last but not least, charity liaison Perry Lascoe (understudy Jonathan Blandino) is working behind the scenes to secure funds for a solarium where “inmates” can enjoy the sunshine on chilly days.

All of this adds up to the kind of “cast of dozens” play that neither Broadway nor most professional regional theaters can afford to produce anymore, that is unless the regional theater in question is Theatricum Botanicum, where longtime favorites and a few newcomers of a certain age prove they’ve still got what it takes to captivate audiences of any age.

Nothing would please me more than to give each and every cast member their due, but I absolutely must single out Blandino, standing in for Coward as the charming and witty Perry, Griffith’s zesty redheaded firecracker Bonita, Stallings’ breath-of-fresh air Zelda, Heath’s efficiency-epitomizing Miss Archie, Geer’s heartbreakingly lost-in-time Sarita, and Walker’s suave eleventh-hour visitor Alan.

Most memorable of all among supporting players, Phillips positively explodes on the stage as Dierdre, given permission by the Coward to represent Black American performers who found a home in the UK that they were denied in the country of their birth. (Phillips’ dance-along-to-Chubby rendition of “The Twist” does even more than stop the show.)

Ultimately, however, there would be no Waiting In The Wings without its two grudge-harboring leading ladies, brought to vibrant, unforgettable life by stunning Theatricum favorite Angelo as the open-hearted and elegantly dressed-and-coiffed Lotta and first-timer Wikstrom as her steely, intransigent arch nemesis May.

Theatricum Botanicum’s expansive outdoor stage gives these grandes dames plenty of room to saunter about amidst aging furniture pieces and Darby Huffaker’s seen-better-days props as they sport costume designer Vicki Conrad’s striking array of weathered finery, all of the above lit to perfection by Hayden Kirschbaum, with sound designer Marc Antonio Pritchett underscoring scene changes with snippets of Noël Coward singing one after another of his sophisticated ditties.

Aubrey Saverino is assistant director. Karen Osborne is stage manager and Sky Wahl is assistant stage manager. Beth Eslick is wardrobe supervisor. Cole Dechant, Emelie Dechant, Asher Edwards, Sophie Edwards, Brooke Heatley, Jay James, and Christopher Miles are production assistants. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

Plays that offer actresses of retirement age the chance to strut their stuff are rarer than rare, and given how rare it is for Theatricum Botanicum treasures like Angelo, Geer, Phillips, and Griffith to get to share the stage, let alone be joined by a bevy of equally illustrious castmates, Noël Coward’s Waiting In The Wings may well turn out to be the summer’s most must-see Theatricum Botanicum production in a season filled with must-sees.

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga. Through October 3. See website for performance dates and times.
www.theatricum.com

–Steven Stanley
August 2, 2026
Photos: Ian Flanders
Understudy performance photos: Steven Stanley

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