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THEATER REVIEWS Neither is brand-new. Respect: A Musical Journey of Women already has played the Cuillo Centre in West Palm Beach, and Menopause the Musical once occupied the Wilton Manors theater where Respect is now running before moving on to a long stay in the upstairs theater at Actors' Playhouse. Nevertheless, the audience for the two shows appears to be both vast and appreciatively vocal.
Respect, now at Stage Door's 26th Street Theatre, is an entertaining yet odd hybrid of theater, personal history, sociological study and pop song anthology. Created by Dorothy Marcic, a professor at Vanderbilt University, the show grew out of her book tracing the evolution of women's roles as reflected in popular music. Working with director Peter J. Loewy and talented musical director-arranger Phil Hinton, Marcic has threaded personal narrative through snippets or full versions of some 60 songs -- though those songs are much more powerful and enlightening than the text, which could use an experienced playwright's rewrite. Wisely, Marcic hired actors Emily Price, Jeanette Fitzpatrick and Paulette Dozier to do nearly all of the singing. Marcic, a vibrant woman who looks like a more mature version of Cold Case star Kathryn Morris, warbles a bit and talks about herself and the women in her family, but her performing ''style'' is extremely awkward when measured against the self-assured, stage-savvy work by the other women. Singing their way through the 20th century, the gals chart the journey from restrictive tradition to endless possibility. Though subtlety in performance rarely happens in Respect, the women carve out memorable moments -- the husky-voiced, jazz-oriented Dozier singing Billie Holiday's God Bless the Child as well as recounting a weary Rosa Parks' story; Fitzpatrick's hilariously over-the-top take on It Must Be Him; Price and the others strutting through Julie Kleiner's choreography on Video. The thematic territory is narrower in Menopause, Jeanie Linders' popular revue which pairs change-of-life lyrics to such tunes as Chain of Fools, Heat Wave and Good Vibrations. Now at the handsome Miniaci Performing Arts Center on the Nova Southeastern University campus, the show still turns on an improbably silly conceit: Four menopausal women combing through on-sale undies at Bloomingdale's immediately bond and spend the day roaming the department store while singing about hot flashes and mood swings. Right. But actors Leigh Bennett (as the straight-laced Iowa Housewife), Patti
Gardner (as the hanging-onto-sexiness Soap Star), Jean Zarzour (as the
cheerfully blunt Earth Mother) and the always-amazing Avery Sommers
(as belt-it-out Power Woman) know how to sell the amusing songs. And
now that scary hormone-replacement therapy isn't the go-to choice for
the menopausal, maybe laughter is the best medicine.
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Predominantly
female, with supportive or long-suffering men dotted here and there,
these crowds hoot and holler as if they were congregants at a revival
meeting. And in a way, they are: There's something very spirit-refreshing
and empowering about seeing your life experiences (even something as
hormonally fraught and sweat-inducing as menopause) reflected in an
uplifting way onstage. Theater for the ages it isn't, though both shows
feature some powerhouse vocal performances. It's the been-there, felt-that
resonance that makes them work.