REVIEW: Menopause the Musical

My wife and I used to go to the movies, go to the theater, attend concerts. The last four years, we've done it far less. I have seen far fewer movies, hardly any concerts, and virtually no theatrical shows. The season tickets to Capital Rep, the Equity theater in Albany, right now are a thing of the past.

But a confluence of events allowed me to go see Menopause: the Musical last month. My wife was away at college for a couple weeks. During the first week, I took our daughter to day care and picked her up at a friend's house, well, except for one day when I decided to pick her up.

That first weekend, I took the daughter to Grandma and Grandpa's house a little over an hour away, where she stayed during the second week of my wife's educational sojourn.

Since my wife had suggested that she wasn't interested in seeing Menopause: the Musical, I decided to go myself. One of my co-workers had gone, once in Boston and again at Cap Rep last summer. She had to go twice because everyone was laughing so hard, she was missing some of the dialogue.

I opted to go Wednesday night, July 9, which turned out to be opening night for this run. I had been "warned" by my colleague that there wouldn't be many men there. Au contraire! There were eight, maybe nine guys in the audience, a couple guys together, a handful who appeared to be with their wives or girlfriends, and me. This does not count the two "Mr. Wonderful" gentlemen who accompanied Maggie, the chief wrangler for the theater, and another Cap Rep rep on stage to introduce the production.

In short, I enjoyed it tremendously. The conceit of this program is that these four very disparate women, meeting in Bloomingdale's, bond over "the change". It is made uproarious by the writer Jeanie Linders taking the tunes of popular songs, every single one of which I knew, and changing the lyrics. "Puff, the Magic Dragon" becomes "Puff, My God, I'm Draggin'". "My Guy" becomes "My Thighs".

I bought the soundtrack from the production in Chicago, but I found the cast in this production even more appealing. Only one of the four, Satori Shakoor (Professional Woman), was in last year's Cap Rep production, but she and her colleagues, Ellen Kingston (Soap Star), Stephanie Pascaris (Earth Mother), and Liz Hyde (Iowa Housewife) worked together as though it were mid-run, not the premiere.

There were a couple things, though. A young woman sitting next to me was texting during parts of the performance, which I found not only distracting, but silly; watch the performance! Also, afterwards, several women gave me this LOOK, which I perceived to mean "Are you shocked by all this? Are you OK?" Yes, I am fine, thank you, and well entertained.

Menopoause is currently playing in Louisville and Las Vegas, in addition to Albany, and will be come coming to a theater (more or less) near you in the coming weeks.
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