`INDEPENDENCE' PROVACATIVE LOOK AT A FAMILY FALLING APART (PLAY REVIEW)

Tis down in yonder garden green,

Love where we used to walk,

The finest flower that e'er was seen

Is withered to a stalk.

-- 17th Century Scottish Border Ballad

The scenario presented by Lee Blessing's play "Independence" is a theatrical fixture: the family precariously orbiting a wounded, unstable and perhaps dangerous patriarch or matriarch. The members of the family search for their identities and a little hope within the ruins usually left behind by the time the curtain comes down.

But in the hands of four talented actresses and student director Bob Clubbs, "Independence" is a provocative and unsettling take on the familial roles children play and the sometimes difficult agreements they must make among themselves come adulthood.

The play opens at 8 tonight at the Lab Theatre in Southeast's Graul Building and continues through Saturday.

As the play opens, oldest daughter Kess (Brooke Hildebrand) has been out of contact with the family for four years. The Minneapolis English professor has been summoned home to Independence, Iowa, by an emergency: Middle sister Jo, who at 25 still lives at home, has been attacked by their mother Evelyn.

Evelyn (Jessica Nelms) was born in this featureless house, its furniture as worn as her sense of hope. Evelyn says she constantly tries to create a warm and loving universe, but she believes the universe is neither.

Just look at Sherry (Rachel Roberts), her youngest, a profane 19-year-old would-be artist/biker babe who can't wait until she finally graduates from high school so she can leave home just like the oldest sister she hardly knows.

Henry Briggs, the husband who many years before left Evelyn with three daughters to raise alone, doesn't appear on stage but he plays a major role in their lives. The closeted anger that became Evelyn's madness is like a stepchild all her children eventually want to disown.

Nelms' deft Evelyn is a woman who delusionally thinks she still can gather herself against the blows of the world. She has spent some time in the mental institution where she now works as a volunteer who remembers to smile.

Her rock is Jo (Jessica Wilson), but Jo has upset Evelyn's unsure equilibrium by getting pregnant. Evelyn has persuaded Jo to reject the father's marriage proposal.

It's hard to know what Evelyn considers more incomprehensible: the fact that Kess is writing a book called "Imagery in 17th-Century Scottish Border Ballads" or the fact that she's a lesbian.

Hildebrand's character provides the clarity to recognize the danger -- especially to Jo and her unborn child -- of those rooms giving birth to new generations of Evelyns.

Despite the momentousness of these days in this family's life, the play is not heavy and anything but humorless. Sherry and Kess have a hilarious scene in which they try to one-up each other with stories about the most meaningless sex they've had. Poor Jo can't quite comprehend meaningless sex.

Wilson brings an appealing blend of niceness and vulnerability to her role. Roberts' portrayal of Sherry is gleefully snotty and an auspicious debut by the freshman.

Don Marler's set is simple but amplifies the daughters' increasing sense that these walls were made for knocking down.

The hard work by the cast and director in refining nuances is hidden in the seamless interplay that makes "Independence" a night worth spending at the theater.