Tag: the Gladstone theatre 2015

Menopause The Musical: A funny production celebrating the changes in life

Menopause The Musical: A funny production celebrating the changes in life

Janet Martin (Iowa Housewife), Nicole Robert (Earth Mother), Jayne Lewis (Soap Star), Michelle E. White (Professional Woman)
Janet Martin (Iowa Housewife), Nicole Robert (Earth Mother), Jayne Lewis (Soap Star), Michelle E. White (Professional Woman)

“Good evening, ladies. And you too, sir.”

The producer’s introduction acknowledges the target audience and underlines that the connection with Menopause The Musical is through common experience — past, present or anticipated. (For the record, there were four men in the capacity audience on the evening that I saw the award-winning show and they were laughing almost as hard as the rest.)

Menopause The Musical by Jeanie Linders premiered in 2001, and, according to the show’s official website, some 11 million people — mainly women, often of that certain age — have laughed their way through the 90 minutes celebrating the change of life, courtesy of the four types representing them all: a professional woman, a star of daytime TV, an ex-hippie and a small-town housewife.

The action begins at the lingerie sale counter in Bloomingdale’s department store in New York. The four women — never named to emphasize the universality of hot flashes, memory glitches, weight gain, frequent bathroom visits, mood swings and so on — sing about their menopausal experiences with melodies borrowed from the pop charts of the 1960s and 70s.

So, songs such as Puff, the Magic Dragon becomes Puff, My God, I’m Dragging and My Guy becomes My Thighs, as the housewife bemoans the heftiness of her nether regions. To the tune of The Lion Sleeps Tonight, we hear that “In a guest room, on the sofa, my husband sleeps at night.” Meanwhile, The Great Pretender is the vehicle for explaining the handling of forgetfulness. The clever parodies are very funny and the familiarity of the pop melodies increases the humour quotient at every well-orchestrated and well-choreographed turn and through each smooth scene change.

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Living Together/ Round and Round the Garden. Two episodes of Ayckbourns Trilogy reaches new heights of flawless gusto!

Living Together/ Round and Round the Garden. Two episodes of Ayckbourns Trilogy reaches new heights of flawless gusto!

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Photo Lois Siegel.  John P Kelly director of the NOrman conquests

If you think your personal relationships are sometimes fraught, check out Living Together, the second part of Alan Ayckbourn’s trilogy The Norman Conquests now in a terrific revival at The Gladstone. Your problems will pale by comparison.

The comic-with-a-bite trilogy consists of three separate but related plays: Table Manners, Living Together, and Round and Round the Garden. Table Manners opened The Gladstone’s season a couple of weeks ago, Round and Round the Garden opens Sept. 25, and all three will play in repertory starting Sept. 29. On Oct. 10, the three plays will be presented in one fell swoop.

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