'Dixie Swim Club' sinks in shallow waters

There's no denying the target demographic of the comedy "Dixie Swim Club," now in production at Steel Beam Theatre in St. Charles. It's for anyone who loves the genres often derisively known as "chick flicks" or "chick lit."

And more to the point, this committee-written comedy by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten also has enough Southernisms thrown in to appeal to fans of TV reruns of "Designing Women" - or those who loved the character of Blanche Devereaux on "The Golden Girls."

If you fall outside of any of these demographics, "Dixie Swim Club" will feel like precious time wasted. Compared with Robert Harling's far-superior "Steel Magnolias" (which has a solid dramatic arc amid its Southern belle witticisms), "Dixie Swim Club" only skims its dramatic surface with thinly drawn characters and manufactured conflicts that evaporate as quickly as they emerge.

The comedy concerns five women who have remained lifelong friends after competing together on their college's swim team. Each August, they reunite for a girls-only weekend at a North Carolina beach house for a series of group swims and lots of gabbing.

Though "Dixie Swim Club" spans the course of 33 years, the playwrights have neglected to put in much historical context (if any) to root these women to a certain generation. The generalities continue to the women themselves, who are more easily written off types rather than fully realized people.

For example, Sheree (Donna Steele) is the health-nut and schedule taskmaster because she was the former team captain. Lexie (Barb McCaskey) is the attractive one who goes through husbands like tissues. Dinah (Paula Tsiagalis) is the high-powered Atlanta lawyer while Vernadette (Patricia Finn-Morris) is the accident-prone suburban mom who is just skirting the poverty line with extremely wayward kids. Then there's Jeri Neal (Dana Teichart) a former Catholic nun who starts the play off with an out-of-the-blue announcement and sight gag.

While there is plenty of poignant drama and comedy to be drawn from these women and their diverse life situations, the playwrights behind "Dixie Swim Club" seem more content to shift their characters around into "Wouldn't it be funny if" circumstances and wacky outfits more apropos to a bad TV sitcom. Yes, there are laughs to be had, but the characters come off more as Southern belles alternating in far too many self-aware sketch comedy routines rather than genuine people in real comic situations.

It would be nice to say that Steel Beam's "Dixie Swim Club" acting ensemble under David Belew's direction succeeded despite the trite script and underwritten characters. But alas that isn't the case here.

McCaskey really could have played up the looks-obsessed shallowness of Lexie with a more confident vivaciousness. As the former nun Jeri, Teichart comes across as someone who has tossed off her religious life-calling like an outfit in a dressing room.

And considering the many wonderful performances that Donna Steele has offered at Steel Beam through the years, her Sheree comes off as too tentative, hardly a woman who is secure with her organized timetable life.

On the plus side, Tsiagalis exudes an appropriate confidence as the wealthy lawyer Dinah while Finn-Morris is good about the blasé "seen-it-all" attitude of Vernadette (though some nagging insecurities about her family's myriad problems would have been welcome).

As an evening of forgettable fun, "Dixie Swim Club" will hit the spot for many a chick-flick fan. But for anyone else longing for some substance and believable characters, "Dixie Swim Club" will be more akin to water torture.