Heart & Dagger Productions takes us back to 1956 with 5
LESBIANS EATING A QUICHE (by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood, playing @ BCA
through Nov. 30th). Sadly it’s a year I remember well. Air raid sirens
blared every day at noon so we’d know what to do if someone (Everyone knew it
would be those Russians: Everyone was wrong) dropped a hydrogen bomb on our
placid neighborhood. Preparedness, by the way, meant “duck and cover” as if
hiding under a school desk could prevent radiation from scorching our skin.
No one is more pleased than I to witness a silly spoof of
those chilling days of yesteryear. 5 LESBIANS is deliriously daft, purposely
lame (think PSYCHO BEACH PARTY) and mercifully short. Director Joey C.
Pelletier (who also directed that BEACH PARTY a couple of years ago) knows his
way around send-up. His secret formula is speed and light and lots of energy. (That
sounds suspiciously like Einstein’s theory of relativity… but no matter!)
The ladies of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of
Gertrude Stein call each other “widow” because the L-word wasn’t regularly
invoked in the ‘50s (nor was the H-word: gay men were called “artistic”) but I
digress. The Linder/Hobgood play isn’t much concerned with historical accuracy.
It’s hysterical accuracy they’re going for.
Many homes back then had “cold closets” stocked with canned
goods and provisions they believed would last through a nuclear winter…(Just
one, mind you, in a tiny tar papered closet with the whole family until the air
was safe in spring). Hence the quiche. The Sisters of Gertrude Stein are
gathered for their annual bake-off so there are 56 pies vying for Best Quiche
when Kaboom! Luckily the butch building committee chairwoman had the foresight
to install a safety door which automatically seals in case of a nuclear event.
The bad news: They are the last people on earth. The good
news: They have enough quiche to last at least until the radiation drifts out
to sea. But wait. “Someone left the cake out in the rain… and it took so long
to bake it and [they’ll] never have the recipe again.” Just kidding. That song
won’t be written for at least ten more years. But those quiches are
outside the hermetically sealed room. What will they do? Furthermore, how will
they populate this brave new world?
The clever, Saturday Night Live-like jokes fly by like missiles.
Well, some land with a thud. The modus operandi is to just keep ‘em coming.
There’s even a heady reference to Pope Joan (who “passed” for male and became
the only female Pope in Vatican history… which
led thereafter to the practice of genital checking via a special chair the
Cardinals could crawl beneath. I’m told one can find that chair in the Vatican Museum.) Oops. More digression inspired
by Linder and Hobgood’s “Pope Jones”/“Pope Joans” reference.
What makes 5 LESBIANS work is Pelletier’s remarkable, madcap
cast. Erin Rae Zalaski is a hoot as the perky but rigid event organizer.
Melissa Barker as the building and grounds engineer has just the right swagger
to declare she’s a “big, ol’ lesbian” when the time comes to fess up. (The
audience gets to, too!) Elizabeth Battey does daffy like it’s mother’s milk—and she gets the best moment in the
play, hands down. She has a blast and so do we. That’s all I’m saying.
Best of all are Laurie Singletary as the Society’s president
and mother hen (She lays down laughs like a chicken lays eggs, by the dozens)
and Lauren Foster as the newest member of Singletary’s brood. All she wants is
for her pie to win first place. When the quiches become scarce as… well… hen’s
teeth (I can’t help myself), she runs at the banquet table, jumps onto the
remaining quiche and has her way with it in a wild, erotic frenzy.
And there’s a nifty vegetarian endorsement in the play which
sealed the deal for me. The only problem is that I’ve been craving quiche ever
since.
