Review: Widowed neighbors move forward in FST’s romantic drama ‘Maytag Virgin’

Over the last decade at Florida Studio Theatre, Rachel Moulton has become one of my favorite actors in Sarasota with her intense and richly detailed performances of a wide variety of characters, most often under the direction of Kate Alexander.

She delivers another one in the new summer production of Audrey Cefaly’s romantic drama “Maytag Virgin,” in which you can love the actor and all the wonderful touches she brings to the role of a recently widowed high school English teacher, even if it takes a long while to warm up to the character she’s playing.

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When we first meet Lizzy Nash, she emerges from the back porch of her home in a small Alabama town carrying a homemade pie to deliver to her new neighbor as a belated gesture of welcome.

Jack Key, played with earnestness and a touch of bemusement by Blake Price, is busy moving boxes and trying to get settled into his new house after moving from Biloxi. Jack will be starting as a physics teacher at Lizzy’s school, so they will also be working together when she returns from a leave of absence.

It’s an awkward first meeting as the distinctly Southern Lizzy rattles Jack by telling him the previous owners died in the same bedroom he claimed as his own. “Have you seen any ghosts yet?” she asks in a friendly manner, unaware of how disturbing her comments could be.

Jack clearly wants to get back to work but patiently entertains her as Lizzy keeps talking, and talking, and pressing him about moving his Maytag dryer from the back porch into the house.

Over the first few visits, on the beautifully rendered wooden porches designed by Pedro L. Guevara, you can see Jack’s hesitancy each time Lizzy approaches. At one moment she seems like a nuisance you tolerate or want to avoid, but she’s also subtly disarming in her social awkwardness and, eventually, kind of charming as she slowly reveals details about her life and marriage.

Lizzy has struggled since her husband’s death with everyone in town expressing concern for her welfare. “Sometimes, I feel like I have a scarlet W on my chest, the way people talk and stare. It’s like you’re branded,” she says.

We begin to realize that Jack perfectly understands and why he puts up with Lizzy. He’s been a widow for two years and moved away for a fresh start.

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Over the course of a year, including the Christmas season, we get to know and understand them. The information comes out in spurts at time. Sometimes a glance, or a silhouette through the window (through Andrew Gray’s lighting), is as revealing as words. There’s an attraction between them and Price and Moulton tenderly convey the chemistry that the two characters try to ignore.

Through it all my appreciation for the two performances only grew. Moulton has the showier role because she does the most talking. But Price is a wonderful match or foil, letting us see his shifting emotions and thoughts even if the script doesn’t give him words to express them.

As the director, Alexander allows everything to emerge in its time, and allows the two actors to move naturally in the backyard space.

There are occasionally odd choices in the script. Jack has planned what he hopes might be a romantic dinner in the backyard, and as they seem to be getting closer, he interrupts everything to get laundry out of his dryer and starts to fold it. It seemed like a strange move in the situation, but Lizzy just jumps in to help him.

The play is talky and there are times, even at the end, when you might wonder, what it all adds up to. Cefaly introduces a religious conflict – he’s Catholic and she is Baptist – but it seems like a minor complication between them meant to mean more. Perhaps there are lessons to be learned in Cefaly’s poetic but overstuffed play. That’s something I’ll be thinking about in the days ahead.

‘Maytag Virgin’

By Audrey Cefaly. Directed by Kate Alexander. Reviewed July 5. Through July 31. Florida Studio Theatre’s Keating Theatre, 1241 N. Palm Ave., Sarasota. 941-366-9000; floridastudiotheatre.org

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Tender ‘Maytag Virgin’ opens at Sarasota’s Florida Studio Theatre | Review