Seniors Play the Mating Game in Stage Comedy

With the warm weather easing its way in, Garden State consumers are looking forward to another season of Jersey Fresh produce.

If you just can’t wait, find your way to the , where the Women’s Theater Company is producing a delicious, all-Jersey show to close out its season.

Continuing an association that goes back nearly 20 years, Producing Artistic Director Barbara Krajkowski will present “Southern Comforts,” by celebrated playwright and Mine Hill native Kathleen Clark.

This two-character comedy, which also has its share of dramatic moments, shares a touching romance between two seemingly mismatched seniors. In an interesting twist, Robert M. Hefley and Nona Pipes from New York City, who are married in real life, will make their debuts with Parsippany’s professional resident theater.

Clark, who now lives in Leonia, is perhaps best known for “Secrets of a Soccer Mom,” which the WTC staged a few years ago following its move to the center’s 99-seat Parsippany Playhouse. Following the critical and box-office success of that production, Krajkowski is eager to team up with Clark once more.

“I have worked with Kathleen since we started out company in 1993, when we were performing original plays by women. That was upstairs at Tierney's Bar in Montclair,” Krajkowski recalled.

“I had a play called ‘Banner’ that I showed to Barbara in the late ‘80s, and she did it,” Clark said. “That was great for me. It was one of my first productions. And the neat thing is that with her doing ‘Southern Comforts,’ she is the only one who will have directed all three of my [published] plays.”

“Southern Comforts” brings the audience into the tidy home of a New Jersey widower, Gus, a retired union man and widower who is quite set in his ways. Like a sudden breeze, a neighbor’s mother, visiting from Tennessee, blows through his house and home, upsetting his routine but breathing new life into his lonely existence.

While Gus is based on a variety of men she knew, including her father, the widow Amanda was based on Clark’s grandmother, who followed her then 18-year-old daughter—Clark’s mother—to New Jersey, where they both ended up marrying Jersey men. The culture clash between North and South, along with the uplifting story of two seniors going through various stages of love and romance, give “Southern Comforts” a universal appeal that has brought this play around the world.

“I like her work, I find them very human, very honest and discussing those topics we all have at some point in our lives,” Krajkowski said. “I was attracted to ‘Southern Comforts’ because of the topic of our growing senior population and the idea that more of them are moving in together. So this seemed very real and topical to me.”

Clark said she enjoyed coming back to Morris County to take in the premiere of ‘Soccer Mom’ and participate in a talkback with the audience. She plans to attend the Friday premiere of “Southern Comforts” and said she is up for another talkback if Krajkowkski can put it on the schedule.

“I’m a New Jersey girl at heart and most of my plays take place in New Jersey,” said Clark, who graduated from Dover High School. “I guess I’m trying to counteract the bad rap Jersey gets from shows like ‘Jersey Shore’ and ‘The Sopranos.’ ”

The Women’s Theater Company production of “The Last Five Years” runs May 4-20 at the Parsippany Community Center’s Parsippany Playhouse, 1130 Knoll Road, Parsippany. Tickets $20, $18 seniors. For online ticket purchase or information, visit www.womenstheater.org or call 973-316-3033.