If you are a woman over 40, or for other reasons have hit that
time of your life that is joked and cursed about, this show might
be fun entertainment. If you do not fall into this category, don’t
worry about it. Stay home and watch something reality-themed and
you will be ahead of the game.
If you are a woman over 40, or for other reasons have hit that time of your life that is joked and cursed about, this show might be fun entertainment. If you do not fall into this category, don’t worry about it. Stay home and watch something reality-themed and you will be ahead of the game.
Playwright Jean Landers wrote this little vignette over a bottle of wine and a hot flash. Given that most reviews in the nine years since its opening in 2001 in Orlando, Fla., have not been kind, this production has trudged along playing to 11 million women in 250 cities and 14 countries. So much for bad reviews.
Four women meet in Bloomingdales while fighting over a black bra at a lingerie sale. They find the one thing they have in common is the problems that menopause creates in their lives.
Loosely strung together with parodies of songs of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, the show runs 90 minutes without intermission.
The thin plot seems to really appeal to women in the predicament at hand and with those who can identify with the characters and their plight.
Megan Cavanagh – best known as Maria Hooch from “A League of Their Own,” – Kimberly Ann Harris, from the Broadway production “A Color Purple”, and long-time “Menopause The Musical” veterans Liz Hyde and Lisa Fox round out the cast.
This show is definitely for a specialized audience – a little on the blue side in spots and not for the very prim and proper. Most guys will be bored and, of course, children are not to be included.
If you have a perverse interest in a musical that obsesses about “the change,” this one might be for you. Eleven million women all can’t be wrong.
***
“Menopause The Musical”
In San Jose
When: Aug. 18 through 22
Where: California Theatre, 345 S. First St., San Jose
Tickets: $29.50-$49
Details: (408) 792-4111 or visit www.sjtix.com
In San Francisco
When: Aug. 25 through 27
Where: Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco
Tickets: $29.50-$49
Details: (414) 392-4400 or visit www.CityBoxOffice.com
