Oak Street’s ‘Charitable Sisterhood’
A church basement, a raging storm and a pile of clothes, at first blush, don’t appear to have a lot in common.
But when those three elements combine, they unite a group of five women, who learn about life, themselves and each other in the comedy “The Charitable Sisterhood of the Second Trinity Victory Church,” which opens Friday, Sept. 30, in the Flo Summitt Theatre at Oak Street Playhouse.
The women, according to director Jerry Draper, “are from different places in church experience, and in life, but they find common ground in a few hours together.”
The story in general, by playwright Bo Wilson, drew him, he says, because, like the Southern comedy “Steel Magnolias,” it involves “close friendships” and “the way [the characters] interact.” But it also has “elements of surprise,” where “they don’t see the twist coming.”
When it opens in 1977, several women of the church in rural Virginia are assembling in the church basement to sort items donated to assist families in Guatemala, which has experienced a natural disaster and whose residents require basic needs.
Among the women is Bea Littleton, the pastor’s wife, who as many audiences might have experienced in their own lives, is the driving force in the church. The other women may have been around longer, or not as long, but they are still learning the pecking order within the congregation.
They must learn, according to Draper, the reality of “we’ve always done it that way — Bea’s way” and “must step back and find out how things are done.”
In addition to the women, the sixth character in the play, he says, is the clothing being given away.
“[The characters] have to be aware of it, address it,” work around it, Draper says. “It represents what brings them together.”
The actual clothing and other items also offer an outlet for the theater, he says. What has been collected for the play and is in good shape will be donated to the Mustard Tree ministry, which operates out of First-Centenary United Methodist Church, where the theater is located, or to the Chambliss Center for Children.