Theater

Only in the South would there be a wedding reception stocked by a Tupperware potluck supper.

Only in the South would the local butcher donate several pigs to barbecue at said wedding — and give everyone attending a 20 percent discount on their next meat purchase if they bring in a wedding napkin.

Only in the South would an aunt of the bride showing up wearing gold lame, and the mother of the bride would choose a Gone With the Wind theme for the entire affair.

Yet the sheer "Southern-ness" of the play Dearly Beloved makes it important to dial back the performances and not fall over the ledge into caricature.

"It would be real easy to come out and do an episode of Hee Haw," says Mike Stedham, who plays "Dub" Dubberly, husband of Frankie Futrelle, one of three sisters who form the core of the play.

"That's the biggest challenge in a play like this because it is truly a farce," says Lolly Payne, who's playing the role of Geneva, the cantankerous, overbearing wedding planner. "If you overact even a little, then your character looks unreal."

These "characters" include Frankie Futrelle, who keeps talking to her mother, even though Mom's dead as a doornail. Then there's Twink Futrelle, who wants her boyfriend of 15 years to marry her, but can't seem to get him on the same page. Finally there's Honey Raye Futrelle, who has pretty much made a career out of getting married.

In fact, it was Honey Rae's marriage to an evangelist that broke up the Sermonettes, the sisters' gospel-singing trio. Feelings still fester over that one.

The whole thing swirls around the marriage of Dub and Frankie's daughter, Gina Jo, an event that Frankie wants — with all her heart and desperation — to come off with style and grace in their hometown of Fayro, Texas.

Yeah, well. Good luck with that.

In the end, the play is about making allowances for those you love and even making allowances for those you don't. "It's about people who really love each other but sometimes don't know how to communicate," Stedham says.

Hopefully, characters in the play will be as familiar to audience members as someone in their own family, cast members say.

"I have seen wedding planners who are as cantankerous as Geneva," Payne says. "She's into getting the things done, and everything done like clockwork in her way and in her order."

"These are the people you see every day in your neighborhood. These are the people that you know," says Stedham, who headed off to Wal-Mart and bought himself a camouflage cap as soon as he got the role. Had to have time to get it nice and lived in, don't you know?