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I was initially wary, because this gift's wrapping wasn't very promising. Pat Ashton's set is a typical girl's bedroom, with flowered wallpaper and a four-post bed. Sure, there's a Malcolm X poster on the wall with his "By any means necessary" quote, but still, it's very conventional.

And the premise - five bridesmaids getting together during a wedding reception - practically screams "TV sitcom." Add to that the fact that the play is set in Knoxville, Tenn., and that the five have southern accents thicker than humidity in the tropics, and you might think you're in for a bad imitation of "Designing Women."

But the play is written by Alan Ball, the man who wrote the Oscar-winning script of the movie "American Beauty" and created the Emmy Award-winning HBO series "Six Feet Under." There's certainly nothing conventional about Ball or his ideas.

They're all wearing the same monstrous fluorescent peach dress (courtesy of costume designer Kathleen Kolacz), with the ubiquitous oversized bow in the back, white lace, puffy sleeves, and hems that look like Liberace's window treatment. Any woman who's ever been a bridesmaid will relate.

But like girls forced to wear school uniforms, some of these women have personalized their gowns in different ways. They all may be wearing the same dress, but they're not carbon copies of each other.

Frances (Emily Morgan), a 21-year-old virgin with unquestioning religious beliefs, wears her off-the-shoulder dress with the sleeves pulled up as close as possible to her neck. Morgan plays her character well with wide-eyed naivete and jittery nervousness, a Christian Stepford wife who's yet to marry.

Meredith (Bree Cowan), the sister of the bride and a wanna-be rebel, has defiantly tossed a $500 black leather jacket over her peach-on-steroids dress.

Georgeann (Kristin Cassidy), a fun-loving woman with a hearty libido, is wearing a black Victoria's Secret bustier under her gown, in hopes that later it'll be ripped off her in the heat of passion. When we first meet her, she's disheveled and despairing. She provides some of the evening's best laughs.

This quintet share, dish, confess secrets, dissect each other's lives, challenge and support each other. Weddings, as at any milestone such as births and funerals, cause these women to examine their lives and ponder their futures.

Much of it focuses on love and relationships and, for at least four of them, men. They puzzle over the opposite sex, over the way men lure them and frustrate them, appeal and disappoint.

The dialogue, only in rare moments, veers into preachiness with one or two lines that sound almost like a public health announcement. But for 99 percent of the time, it's on target, and the laughs are plentiful.

You know those scenes in some movies, where a group of women friends start singing a golden oldie, and you cringe, because it's so obviously contrived? There's none of that. These actors are so believably their characters that you find yourself quite comfortable in their company. These could be your friends. This could be you and your girlfriends.

I've seen Banos in other productions at the Sugden, but this role has to be the apex of her performing so far. Her accent twangs more than a banjo string; she talks in that southern way of adding syllables and stretching vowels, as if each word is so tasty she wants to keep it in her mouth as long as possible. Just listen to her deliver the line, "He is scum!"

Cassidy plays Georgeann as a woman on the verge of a breakdown. She's drinking, she's distraught. Caught in a loveless marriage, she still carries the torch for a former love, who may just be the town's Don Juan.

Stone's character is an outsider, by virtue of the fact that she's a lesbian (and also the groom's sister). But Stone has her moments, especially when she shows the others the graceful way to walk in a hideous bridesmaid gown. And her comments about a Miss America contestant -and her impersonation of one- had me in stitches.

Cowan, as Meredith, might have the most difficult role. She seems to rebel against everything, but, like each of the other women, she has her secrets too. And she exemplifies how sometimes we even keep secrets from ourselves. Though she rants and tries to raise hell, I think one of her best moments in the evening occurs when she's not talking, but reacting to another's comments.

Carmine Gangi as Tripp, makes an appearance late in the show. As the play's only male, there's a lot riding on his shoulders. Gangi plays him as charming and sensitive, with some depth.

Perhaps, in spite of previous disappointments and betrayals, there is hope for love after all. But even if new encounters for these women fall short, you know they're survivors, assured of their strength and fabulousness, supported by each other.

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