'Sordid Lives' brings trash back to Chattanooga Theatre Centre

"Sordid Lives," a black comedy about white trash, returns to the Chattanooga Theatre Centre this weekend. After a sold-out run in the Circle Theatre in 2004, the play will be presented this time on the MainStage.

This comedy is so fantastical it just could be true, if you know the South the way author Del Shores knows it. The play is set in a small Texas town just after the death of Peggy, a grandmother who, during a tryst in a seedy motel room, trips over her lover G.W.'s wooden legs in the dark and suffers a fatal head wound. The aftermath finds Peggy's family trying to cover up the sordid details of her demise and G.W.'s wife seeking revenge on her cheating husband.

Peggy's daughter, Latrelle Williams (played by Stefanie Oppenheimer-Foster) is a determinedly proper Texan in denial over the fact that her son, Ty, a soap-opera star (played by Hunter Rodgers) might be gay. Her only brother, "Brother Boy" (played by Stacy Helton) has been confined to a mental institution for - among other things - being a dedicated Tammy Wynette-obsessed transvestite. And now the whole town is talking about the bizarre accidental death of her mother during a clandestine meeting with her much younger married neighbor, G.W. Nethercott (played by Jerry Draper). To make matters worse, her sister, LaVonda (played by Wendy Tippens), wants to bury Momma in a mink stole in the middle of summer.

Rounding out the "Sordid" cast are Christi Bar as Bitsy Mae Harling, the guitar-playing, ex-con singer; May Wood as Sissy Hickey, a caretaker who picked the wrong day to quit smoking; Valorie Brown as Noleta Nethercott, the angry, betrayed housewife; Greg Rambin as Wardell Owens, the former gay-bashing, remorseful bartender; Bill Williams as Odell Owens, Wardell's worthless, story-telling brother; Beth McClary as Dr. Eve Bolinger, the oversexed, pill-popping, alcoholic therapist; Lamar Bankston as the Rev. Barnes, a Southern Baptist preacher; and Becki Jordan as the neighbor, Juanita.

In a statement, Shores says he's thrilled that the Chattanooga Theatre Centre is producing "Sordid Lives."

"I love it when real Southerners play my characters because they understand that these people are real people and not cartoons," says the playwright. "The success of 'Sordid Lives' - play, movie and series - never ceases to amaze me. I wrote it about my family, but I now know many fortunately - or unfortunately - share my family members."

George Quick is the show's director, assuming the role after the death of the previous director, Brother Ron Fender, in January. Zach Cavan is stage manager.