Sally Parrish, Cynthia Carle, and Peggity Price in Jane Martin’s Cementville.nthreatens mob retaliation, and as thenupstaged Dani (a/k/a Tarzana) andnLessa lose their cool.nOn the negative side, all the humornis very bawdy, and all the Southernncharacters are exaggerated into a HarrynCrews-ish mad-cracker extreme. Wenare supposed to accept that the infamousnDottie and Dolly are WorldnWrestling Federation material, but thenbodysuits with tassels that they sportnwould never make it past the censorsnon TV. Nobody’s ever accused pronwrestling of being in good taste, but itnis a little cleaner than this. When in anneffort to placate the “rubes” MothernCrocker sends out Dani and Nola tonstrip, we’ve descended to the Jell-0ncircuit.nThat aside, the play is funny, andnthe colorful hick speech (the onearmednpaperhanger-isms) is originalnhick speech. Only the end, in which anretired black boxer gives a long speechnon the purer days of pro-sport, seemsnunfinished or at least inconclusive, butnafter letting the four winds out ofnMount Haemus it is no mean feat tonget them back in again.nThis kind of depiction of Southernnlife is irritating to many Southerners,nconscious as they are that the one areanof the country in which children arenstill taught manners is invariably representednon stage and screen by a foulmouthednBubba. They should takencomfort in the knowledge that thenSouth is perhaps the only section of thencountry left with enough of an identitynfor there to be something identifiablento laugh at.nRichard Strand’s farce The Death ofnZukavsky should also see several morenproductions. In it three employees of an54/CHRONICLESnlarge corporation find themselves vyingnfor a manager’s job when Zukavskynshows up dead for one morning’snmeeting. You could see the end coming,nbut you really didn’t care, becausenthe interim jokes are original and thenplay’s construction wonderfully tight.nEspecially funny was a scene in whichnA.C. Tattums explains to his competitornAnne Desmond why she will neverngo higher than level four—becausenshe has too many moral scruples aboutntaking money. ATL regulars BillnMcNulty and Ray Fry were particularlyngood as, respectively, A.C. and hisnboss, Mr. Marlino, and Rod McLachlann(Barry) did very well as preciselynthe sort of dense apple-polisher whoninevitably rises to the top.nAlso well received was ShirleynLauro’s A Piece of My Heart, aboutnthe war experiences and subsequentnlives of five woman who served innVietnam. Originally produced at thenPhiladelphia Festival Theatre for NewnPlays, it is timely to say the least. Thenmessage, as though anyone could missnit, is summed up by Leeann’s “I wantnto never fight another war” at the endnof act II: in the interim an intelligencenofficer’s prediction of the Tet offensivenis discounted (because she’s black, or anwoman, or perhaps because she writesn”Chinese” when she means “Vietnamese”),na sweet Christian girl fromnErie sees her boyfriend blown up innfront of her eyes, and a Texas teenagernsuckered into singing for the USO isnassaulted by some American officers.nOn their return only Sissy from Erienseems stable, and she ends up withnAgent Orange disease, as does her littlengirl. Nobody escapes, most especiallynnot the audience, which is put throughnnn•S^’vnthe wringer along with Sissy andnWhitney and Leeann.nSongs such as “Proud Mary” andn”Down by the Riverside” help to completenthe utter schmaltzification of war,nas does the second act’s de rigueurngroup therapy number, during whichneach woman finally breaks down completely.nFrom the snifiBes I heard, so didnthe audience. Perhaps the final blow isnthe fact that A Piece of My Heart is andocudrama — neither fish nor fowl —nbased heavily on Keith Walker’s booknof Vietnam vet interviews of the samentitle. To read the book is to read anninteresting oral history about an exhilaratingnand terrible time, and to hear thenstories of women who by and largenhave gleaned all the good they cannfrom the experience, worked throughnthe bad, and who are living relativelynhappy lives. (One mother of a childnwith Agent Orange disease is understandablynstill battling.) To see the playnyou would think every woman camenback a basket case.nThe worst embellishment of a lifenseems to be the character of Mary Jo.nHer original, Bobbi Jo Pettit, found hernfive months of entertaining for thentroops in 1967 hard but also so rewardingnthat she went back in ’71. Shenspeaks of getting dangerously isolatednin a shack for four days, but surviving itnunharmed, and says she was treatednwith care and respect by the troops shenplayed for. When the fictionalizednMary Jo is accidently abandoned in anshack with her band for four days, shenis raped by a group of Marines shenhad welcomed as her deliverers. (Thisncomes out in the group therapy sessionn— of course.)nLee Blessing’s Down the Road is an