"Cowboys Are My Weakness" is a play about women who are dying for marriage proposals.
The audience follows four women whose identities are blurred into a composite female of the '90s who is educated, opinionated and vulnerable.
To make a play about women dying for a proposal that never comes is to tread on dangerous ground. With that subject matter, it would be easy to become a Lifetime movie on stage. Finding oneself, learning independence, edgy scenes involving sex - all of these plot lines are dangerously similar to made-for-TV movies and miscellaneous romantic comedies. However, there are several things that save the play from being a poor imitation of cinema.
The actors work hard and tell most of the story through first-person narration directed to the audience. It comes off like reading a narrative, like a picture painted as the pages turn. The women are admittedly emotional and sappy, but they have a self-awareness that remedies this predictability. Live music from a three-person ensemble helps to further paint this picture.
Directed by Dodie Montgomery, it is a two-hour collection of four sketches. It opens with a prologue in which three women address the audience about their conception of freedom and how it changes as life goes on.
It is followed by the first sketch, starring Summer Olsson as Woman 1. Olsson's character explores what it means to be in a relationship with an unfaithful, modern-day "cowboy."
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In the second sketch, Kerry Morrigan is Woman 2, who is on a white-water-rafting adventure with her boyfriend. In both sketches, the heroines try to find a balance between what they desire and what they actually have. Their narratives have a distinct truth to them.
The third sketch stars Olsson again, this time as a woman who has managed to lasso a loving cowboy into her arms and life. The character struggles with falling short of her mother's expectations.
The forth and final sketch stars Kate Schroeder. She plays a woman who finds herself in the twilight of a relationship with yet another unfaithful cowboy or, as she describes him, a capitalist from Texas who owns a horse. Her view on herself and her cowboy is transformed when she is asked to a dance by a handsome Montana ranch hand, played by Drew Pollock.
"Cowboys Are My Weakness" closes with all three actresses addressing the audience in a soliloquy that poses the question, "What's so great about cowboys anyway?"
The actors are earnest, and it is easy to be drawn in by their dynamic performances. I was especially impressed by Morrigan. She delivers a thorough and believable performance. Arguably the most talented actress in the bunch, Morrigan is a chameleon and seems to fully immerse herself in her characters. She was perfect for this play.
"Cowboys Are My Weakness" achieves what it tries to portray: the complexity of romantic relationships, the nature of identity and the balance between love and freedom that many of us struggle with.
"Cowboys Are My Weakness"
Through May 18
Rodey Theater, UNM Center for the Arts
Thursday-Saturdays, 8 p.m.
Sundays, 2 p.m.
$18 general, $12 students and seniors
Tickets Available at UNM Ticket Offices
