A JOY FOREVER
Mattie, who emerges as a frightened, pathetic rabbit, not the dotty lady we’re supposed to love, leads the fight to save the endangered road, which connects her and the Grizzles with the world. Their enemy is a venal county commissioner who wants to close the road to protect the privacy of several proposed river estates.
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Mattie’s been morbidly out to lunch ever since her parents were killed in an auto accident and she saw shrouds on the furniture. Among other fears, she’s convinced someone will soon practice “aggravated sodomy” on her and throw her mutilated body in a Dumpster. Benny Whitmaker, the county commissioner, is the prime candidate. She’s also certain you can get TB and gonorrhea from the spit (she calls it “amber”) the good ole boys ejaculate on the courthouse steps. She’s even convinced it can penetrate the thickest boots. But on a happier note, Mattie believes–ad nauseam–in the “soft spot where you’re a joy forever”; she means the heart, but in her case I’d look a lot higher up.
Up until this point Mommie has been reluctant to sign the petition, for fear that the world will remember their existence and burn them out in the dead of night to gain their land. But after Alfie triumphantly mutilates herself, Mommie galvanizes the girls into fighting for their right to a road, the link to life that nourishes and, gasp, empowers them.
The strange set, a room surrounded by eight very different doors and fenced in by miniature folk-art windmills, is by Linda Lane; the down-home threads by Roger Stricker; and the rather unimaginative lighting, which conveniently dims to signal a flashback, is by Mike Ledger.
