Irish playwright Fionnuala Kenny's Elvis's Toenail is set in Dublin in 1961, when the Catholic Church still maintained its stranglehold on Irish society — but the first signs of resistance and rebellion were beginning to appear. Rita (played with touching simplicity and conviction by Lenne Klingaman) is pregnant but unmarried. She desperately wants to keep her baby, but both her family and the church want to force her to take refuge in the local convent, where the baby would be taken away and put up for adoption. Since church pressure prevents most businesses from hiring the pregnant but unwed, Rita must change her name and go into hiding, working as a seamstress in a dressmaking establishment run by the sympathetic Mrs. Kelly (Laurie Wendorf). Kelly and her staff band together to help Rita elude the clutches of the pompously fanatical Father Ambrose (Gary Bell). Kenny's play is dramaturgically a bit naive, with scenes that don't climax and too much reliance on voice-overs and offstage voices, but she has created a compelling tale and vivid characters. Directors Joe Banno and Sal Romeo have assembled a fine cast, including Marnie Crossen, Wendorf, McKerrin Kelly, Bell and Katie Savoy.

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