[Note: Part 1 of a 3-part series. Part 2 is tomorrow. Part 3 is 8/27/10. Part 4 is 9/17/10.]
Who would have thought MENOPAUSE could be so funny? Personally I find it depressing, debilitating, and disorienting.
Here’s why:
1. Your body ain’t what it used to be—and it ain’t gonna get any better—and probably will get worse. That’s depressing.
2. Hot flashes paralyze you in your tracks. You think you’re on fire (or have been cast into a vat of boiling oil) and you can’t do anything about it—several times a day and night. That’s debilitating.
3. Your brain short circuits. Concentration wanes. Focus becomes fuzzy. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, that’s disorienting.
Women of a "certain age" (and those lucky people around them) will relate -- and laugh -- to the funny presentation of a non-funny "Change" -- in Menopause the Musical created by Jeanie Linders.
Therefore, TG for Menopause the Musical because if you can’t beat it, you may as well laugh at it.
And laugh the audience did yesterday afternoon at the California Theatre in San Jose, CA. Kudos to writer/producer Jeanie Linders for creating this wonderful ode to the aging woman—“A Celebration of Women and the Change”—with the tag line: “It’s NOT the Silent Passage anymore!”
The theme of the musical is: as long as we’re in this together, we can get through it! Here’s the premise:
Four women meet and bond at a Bloomingdale’s sale arguing over lingerie. There’s the businesswoman, the Earth mother, the soap opera star, and the Midwest housewife. The four actresses playing and singing the roles are superb—and totally relateable.
As the women go from floor to floor and hang out in the different departments, they sing songs about the menopausal life. Every malady of the menopausal meltdown process is addressed: such as brain fog; night sweats; facial wrinkles; weight gain; bladder weakness; loss of youth; loss of energy; loss of memory; loss of eyesight; loss of jobs; mood swings; sexual urges; nocturnal food binges; hormonal imbalance; AND the WORST one of all: Turning into your mother!
The theme song is a parody of “Heat Wave,” the Irving Berlin song from the 1930s (not to be confused with “Heat Wave” by Martha and the Vandellas):
I’m having a hot flash,
A tropical hot flash.
My personal summer
Is really a bummer
I’m having a hot flash.
Comes on like a car crash,
No warning just hot flash
Outside it is nippy
But I’m hot and drippy
I’m having a hot flash.
CAN I GET AN AMEN?!
The other 23 songs are mostly from the 60s (16) with 2 from the 50s, 2 from the 70s, and 3 from the 80s. ALL of the songs will make you laugh out loud. Here are a couple examples:
“Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees is revised to “Stayin’ Awake” about insomnia and its counterpart “My Husband Sleeps Tonight” sung to the tune of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” The “Aweema way, aweema way” background vocal was changed to “She’s a witch, she’s a bitch…” This was one of my favorite numbers as the four actresses perform a kind of primal deranged-goddess dance with fists pumping, hopping, and twirling. You had to be there—very funny.
There’s a parody of “The Great Pretender” about brain collapse. “Help Me Rhonda” is now “Thank You Doctor”—about lending a helpful hand with the meds. The chorus to “California Girls” is: “I wish they all could be sane and normal…”
There’s a VERY FUNNY rendition of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” and a rousing rendition of “Chain of Fools,” which is turned into “Change—change—change. Change of fools. You treated me mean. You treated me cruel…”
The new lyrics to “The Shoop Shoop Song” (aka “It’s in His Kiss”) are: “If you wanna know where my fat grams go, they’re on my hips…that’s where it is…”
Likewise, the song “My Guy” is another ditty about weight gain: “Nothin’ you can do, cause it sticks like glue, to my thighs…I tell you from my heart, they’re never far apart—my thighs…”
The song that got the most laughs was a “love song,” sung to a pink vibrator by the Iowa housewife to the tune of “Only You,” the doo-wop song recorded by the Platters. It went something like this:
“Only you can make a change in me,
Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do…
You’re my dream come true, my orgasmic only you.”
Speaking of listening closely, that’s the one criticism of the musical: the acoustics were poor. I was in the second row center. I thought because I was so close to the stage and had to look up at it, that the sound was projected over my head so I couldn’t hear as well.
But when I went to the ladies’ room after the show that was the one comment that everyone made: they couldn’t understand the words. One woman suggested that they should have had a large video screen with “subtitles.”
Aside from that production problem, I LOVED this show. It made me feel so much better about falling apart.
All women need to see this show, because ladies, this is your future!
For information on upcoming shows around the U.S., check out:
http://www.menopausethemusical.com/
You have explained thoroughly the facts about menopause. Very informative post. Thanks!