Review: COLLECTIVE RAGE: A PLAY IN 5 BETTIES Collectively Entertains at Big Idea Theatre

Pearl clutchers, be warned. There’s a new show in town, and you might want to cover your ears. This isn’t for the easily offended, but it is bawdy, hilarious, and altogether relatable. Jen Silverman’s Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties is a bold look at what it means to be female. Collective awakening might be a more apt description, as these 5 women (all named Betty), explore new ideas together.

Betty 1 (Lindsey Ahern) is a tightly-wound, rich, and bored New York socialite who purposely watches the news to provoke her anxiety. She hosts a dinner party with guests Betty 2 (Selina Bender), who is a naïve housewife, and Betty 3 (Iris Garcia), a Sephora employee with a penchant for saying the word pussy. A lot. While Betty 1 insists on proper table etiquette, which does not include using slang for body parts, Betty 2 decides to host her own dinner party in an attempt to make friends. Attending this get-together are Betty 3 and Betty 4 (Sunny Crego), who are best friends and about as different from Betty 2’s suburban hair bow-wearing, Ladies’ Home Journal-reading, casserole-making self as you can get. In fact, Betty 3 tries to get everyone in touch with their feminine selves, deeming Betty 2 too uptight and giving her a hand mirror with instructions on how to scrutinize her feline parts. Betty 3 also laments her lot in life, for working at Sephora isn’t her destiny. She thinks she finds it after a free trip to the “thea-tah”, as she tells Betty 4, and sets out to stage her own “original” production, which is a rip off of Pyramus and Thisbe or, as she calls it, "Burmese and Frisbee." Meanwhile, Betty 5 (Kate Pratt) is busy working on her truck and training at her boxing gym, content to take a break from womanizing, when Betty 1 walks in. Betty 1 is looking for an outlet through which to focus her anger since her philandering husband is never around. What she finds instead is an unlikely source of comfort and attraction.

Collective Rage isn’t a complaint, it’s a celebration. The phenomenal actors visibly enjoy the content and deliver it with a vigor that holds the audience captive. They show us what rebirth is, whether it be that of a career, marriage, identity, or finding yourself to be made of such vibrant colors that you can’t tear your eyes away from a mirror. After all, it’s really what we’re all searching for, right? Self-love, acceptance, and some really great thea-tah.

Collective Rage plays at Big Idea Theatre through July 1. More information and tickets may be found at BigIdeaTheatre.org.

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