Review: 'Menopause The Musical' at Trinity Rep through August 2nd

The audience at Wednesday night’s opening of Menopause the Musical at Trinity Rep’s Chace Theater came ready to laugh.

We meet four archetypal characters at Bloomingdales in NYC.  There is Professional Woman (Fredena Williams), Earth Mother (Barbara Pinolini), Soap Star (Cherie Price) and Iowa Housewife (Carolyn Warren).   The women meet as strangers with nothing in common, but "The Change".

The next 90 minutes is a celebration of women who have suffered through hot flashes, memory blips, and crying jags; all brought on by menopause.

The comedy is bawdy, the acting; vaudevillian but the singing and satire are strong. You wouldn’t think that the subject matter would elicit such devotion. Writer, lyricist and producer Jeanie Linders has obviously hit a nerve.  Linders has re-worked the lyrics from popular 1960’s songs and molded them, quite cleverly, into ditties about hot-flashes, night-sweats and roller coaster sex drives.  A re-worked ode to electronics; ‘Good Vibrations’, made famous by The Beach Boys is followed up by ‘Only You’ which was a hit for the Platters.  If you need me to explain why that is funny, email me.

On Wednesday night, watching the audience which consisted of, mainly, women of a certain age, was almost as entertaining as watching the production.  Alternately embarrassed and empowered, the audience was drawn in (literally) by this no taboos, no fourth wall, experience.

The Freemasons or Skull and Crossbones Society may be harder organizations to get into, but during the show I felt that I was witness to a much larger, much stronger, secret society: women who have gone through or are going through their "own personal summer".

Part musical, part comedy show and part support group; Jeanie Linders‘ Menopause The Musical is a G Four production and plays upstairs at Trinity Rep’s Chace Theater through August 2, 2009.

Tickets are $45 (with discounts available for groups of 10 or more) and can be purchased by calling (401) 351-4242, online at www.trinityrep.com or at the Trinity Rep Box Office at 201 Washington St., Providence, RI.

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