Run for ‘Cover’

You might think of “The Cover of Life” as a little bit like “Steel Magnolias on the Home Front.”

R.T. Robinson’s 1992 play is about three wives in 1943 Louisiana, waiting for their husbands – all brothers – to come back from the war. All three wives – Tood, Weetsie and Sybil – have moved in with their mother-in-law, Aunt Ola, for the duration.

The play is narrated by Kate Miller, a Life magazine correspondent, who has been sent to Sterlington, La., to write about how the three women are coping.

“There’s a lot of texture in this play, involving the relationships between these women,” said director Susan Hardie. “And then there’s the notion of a country at war and the families they left behind, which is timely right now.”

The play’s title refers to both the cover of the magazine, on which the family was featured, and also to the brave public facades erected by these women. The family is “too good to be true,” as audiences soon discover.

The women soon began to squabble amongst themselves. Their menfolk turn out to be not exactly paragons, either.

“But in the end, you can count on them to teach the city sophisticate about love and dreams gone sour,” said New York Times reviewer David Richards about a 1994 production.

“Kate is the catalyst for the story, but the story really revolves around Tood,” said Hardie.

Robinson, a Louisiana writer, came by this story naturally. Hardie said that Robinson’s father and his father’s brothers went to war together. A Life correspondent came out to do a story on the wives, although the story apparently never made the cover. But the scenario was similar.

Robinson premiered this play in 1992 at the American Stage Company at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. Since then it has been revived at regional, community and college theaters.

The Studio Theatre production will feature a no-walls set, representing the Louisiana home and various other locales.

Hardie directs a cast that includes Sara Nicholls, Tanya Morton, Melanie Simka, Susan Creed, Lauren Waterbury, Donna Skoog and Andrew Biviano.