Queen of B-O-R-I-N-G

You know the play's in trouble when the best part of it is an audience-participation bingo game being played during intermission.

Fio and Husband, almost forgetting they had reservations for The Palace's presentation of The Queen of Bingo Friday evening, had to really scurry to get to the theater on time. Then they ended up leaving after the first act. There was a reason no summary of the play appeared in the program--it had no plot.

The play started with "Sis," an attractive, well-groomed woman who appeared to be in her sixties, taking at least ten minutes to set up good-luck charms, large and small, on a bingo table in a wonderful stage setting of "the gym of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Lovelady, Texas." FINALLY she was joined by her younger sibling, "Babe." Babe, who was supposed to be fifty-two, was being played by an actress so much younger that the costumer frumped her up and gave her a weird hairdo, which still didn't do the job: her voice and movements were much too young for a woman in her fifties.

You would think the action would start when Babe appeared, but it didn't. Just some clever remarks back and forth. No conflict. B-O-R-I-N-G.

The intermission bingo resulted in a member of the audience winning a frozen turkey from HEB. How appropriate.