A New Work Whose Time Has Past

Timing is everything. Remember the soccer mom of 1996? Now it's all about hockey moms.

But that doesn't matter to playwright Kathleen Clark, who hasn't caught up with 2008, or 1996. For her, it's still 1974. That's the case in her slender doodle of a comedy-drama, "Secrets of a Soccer Mom," onstage from Elden Street Players.

This new play had a brief, uncelebrated run in New York this year. It seems quite retro, as if the concept of female consciousness-raising has just been discovered.

Clark shows us three women trying to find themselves amid their lives as wives and mothers. It's a lackluster 90 minutes of meandering conversation with nothing new, or even interesting. So we're compelled to quote the nation's most well-known hockey mom and say about this production, "Thanks, but no thanks."

That the play fails is not the fault of the three actors playing mothers gossiping, arguing and sharing secrets on the sidelines of a kids vs. moms hockey game. They eagerly plod through Clark's predictable dialogue about husbands, kids and suburban life.

Directed by Bruce Follmer, cast members inject as much spirit as they can into reinventing a wheel that has been rolling for about 40 years in popular culture. They generate some nice moments along the way to the moment when one asks, "How can you be trapped by what you love?" Quick, somebody call Gloria Steinem.

The mom posing that question is troubled Alison, played with dynamic vitality by Annie Ermlick in her Elden Street debut. Alison's boisterous presence is a catalyst getting two other moms to reflect on their lives. Alison, a former athlete, loves her two children but is significantly less enthusiastic about her husband than she seems to be about a buff gym teacher.

Lynn, played by Susanna Todd, amplifies her PTA volunteerism into martyr status and wields guilt as a weapon to goad friends into taking on assignments. A lawyer who gave up her career when she had children, Lynn maintains her self-worth with an overactive schedule. Nancy, played with an exquisite mix of charm and crankiness by Dana Andersen, was a model before motherhood and has vague dreams of a second career as a photographer.

Clark doesn't make a case that her characters are affected by anything other than the challenges of life as it affects all of us, men and women alike. Why did each of these women put their lives on hold when they married and had kids? Clark doesn't tell us in her elemental and bland narrative.

Andersen, Ermlick and Todd layer in considerable character detail, with a naturalistic energy flow and palpable camaraderie. They create the effect that we're listening to real conversations, but one of those you can't escape more than one you'd actively eavesdrop on. In the last quarter of the play, when the subject of sex is introduced, the audience finally perked up and genuinely laughed. But it was too little, too late -- by about four decades.

In what is supposed to be a transcendent moment of self-actualization, Alison finally takes a major stand against her neglectful husband. She demands they're going to "talk" over dinner, and it's going to be Thai food, not the pizza he wants.

The scene was ridiculously overwrought, conjuring up images of, "I am woman, I want Thai, hear me roar." Within moments, the Helen Reddy anthem "I Am Woman" was shaking the Industrial Strength Theatre, and we partied like it was 1974.

"Secrets of a Soccer Mom" continues through Nov. 15, performed by Elden Street Players at Industrial Strength Theatre, 269 Sunset Park Dr., Herndon. Showtimes are 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Nov. 9 and 8 p.m. Nov. 13. For information and reservations, call 703-481-5930 or visithttp://www.eldenstreetplayers.org.