Atlanta Daily World

Dr. Thurman Stanback's
Play
Labeled
Success
…the Delicate Thread." a psychological
drama of the pain middle
age inflicts on a woman who refuses
to grow old, brought audience
plaudits Tuesday night to its author,
Bethune-Cookman's Dr. Thurman
W. Stanback.
The play's premiere, staged in the
College Auditorium before a capacity
crowd, gave promise it may be
a drama with a future. Dr. Stanback,
Head of the college's Division
of Humanities and the Department
of Speech and Drama, gave his work
a tryout here before attempting to
have it produced in New York.
The Daytona Beach News Journal
Drama Critic, Joy Anne Reese,
stated "Directed by Stanback, the
production was above the par of
usual college presentations, well cast
and generally well acted."
Cleo Higgins, Head of the College
English Department, gave a
dramatically convincing portrait of
41 year old Billie Benton, who was
not allowed to be a little girl when
she should have been and tried to
make it up during the difficult period
of early middle age.
Resenting her 21 year old daughter,
a constant reminder of her escaping
youth, Billie attempts to
prove and reprove her attractiveness
by flirting with her daughter's young
men.
Finally, she propositions her daughter's
fiance and the ensuing events
cause Billie, the "delicate thread
wound between two spools," to snap.
Her psychological unbalance leads
her mentally, not just to youth, but
to complete childhood. Her husband
becomes the father who was killed
when she was 10 and her "Aunt
Lou," her mother.
The daughter and fiance fight
their way through the shattering
events, including a declaration of
hatred between mother and daughter,
and leave to get married, admonished
by Aunt Lou to love their
children and let them know it "every
minute of every day."
Annie Menegeon, B-C student
playing the family's gossipy maid, is
hilariously perfect in her role as
Bertha, who loves funerals because
of all the nice things that get said
about people that they never hear
when they're alive.
Lula M Goolsby, Volusia County
Speech Therapist, both looks and
acts the part of the kindly aunt who
accepts her share of the blame for
what ultimately happens to Billie,
whom she reared.
Rosalyn Moore, college senior, as
the daughter, Alice, who has been
made to feel "big and ugly" by her
petite, pretty mother, does well. And
adequate performances are given by
Carver Portlock as Dan Fox, Alice's
fiance, and Roland Yates, as Billie's
husband, Walter, much too absorbed
in his medical career to denote
the signs of psychosis in his wife.
Portlock and Yates are also students
at the college.