PEARSON: A sublimely 'Sordid' sitcom

By Mike Pearson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 21, 2008 at 6 p.m.

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Photo by Logo / Associated Press

Beth Grant and Rue McClanahan, from left, play sisters in a farcically dysfunctional family in small-town Texas in Sordid Lives, based on Del Shores' play. Shores wrote and directed the opening episodes.

Photo by Logo / Associated Press

Olivia Newton-John plays Bitsy Mae, a country singer who burns down her trailer to get rid of her boyfriend.

* When and where: 8 p.m. Wednesday, Logo

First it was a successful stage play (1996) and then a movie (2000). Now Sordid Lives, the campy comedy by Del Shores, comes to cable's Logo on Wednesday as a weekly sitcom.

The definition of camp is "over-the-top," and this enjoyable show fits the bill. Where else can you find a gaggle of aging character actresses chewing the scenery as if they were at a Country Buffet?

The setting is fictional Winters, Texas, a small town where decent Christian folk run head- on into their own eccentricities.

Rue McClanahan is widow Peggy Ingram, the matriarch of a dysfunctional family. As the series opens, she arrives at the local jail to bail out Bitsy Mae Harling, a country singer (Olivia Newton-John) who burned down her trailer to get rid of her annoying boyfriend.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Peggy's frazzled daughters (Bonnie Bedelia and Ann Walker) are trying to figure out where Mama's disappeared to. Her sister Sissy (the hilarious Beth Grant), meanwhile, just wishes everyone would leave her house so she can pop some more Valium. The entire family is partial to the stress-reducing pills.

A thousand miles away in Hollywood, Peggy's grandson Ty (Jason Dottley) is coming to grips with his homosexuality by auditioning for the play Naked Boys Singing. Just outside of Winters, his cross-dressing uncle Brother Boy (Leslie Jordan in a bright orange jumpsuit) is institutionalized because he refuses to stop dressing like Tammy Wynette. When he learns that Tammy has died that very day, he's determined to throw himself out a hospital window.

There's also Noletta, the trailer-park neighbor (Caroline Rhea) who buys mail-order lingerie to please her man and a sex toy to please herself.

Bad taste? Absolutely. But also feisty and ribald and funny.

The casting is impeccable. McClanahan shines as an elderly woman who makes her first foray into a bar. Jordan inhabits his role with the zeal of a Vegas showgirl. And between them, Bedelia, Ray and Walker snarl and pout and exhibit the emotional instability of a junior-high field trip.

Shores wrote and directed the opening episodes of the series, and he shows a light touch in reshaping his play. The scenes flow effortlessly together, and the only disappointment is the brevity. Just as you're getting caught up in an episode, it ends.

The series is scheduled to run 12 weeks and will offer a number of intriguing cameos. In the first show, Margaret Cho appears as an indifferent Beverly Hills psychologist who tells her patient to stop whining.

Sordid Lives isn't for every palate. It can be bawdy, and its take-no-prisoners riff on religious fundamentalism won't play well with the churchy crowd. Still, it's a show where effective one-liners and sight gags are abundant. If you come from a small Southern town or have ever passed through one, you'll recognize many of the characters here, and understand anew why you left.

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