It wasn't a shock, given the absurdity of the first act — and basing an entire play on a meme seems… fun, and playwright Sheila Callaghan runs with it. The absurdity seemed to shroud the message, at least for Saturday night's audience (and, at times, this reviewer), but we aren't in the business of reviewing scripts, only productions, so we'll give you a brief rundown of why this play should matter and get to the meat of the review.
Women Laughing Alone With Salad concerns itself with the conflicted ways women deal with each other, their individuality and their sexuality, but at its core it's an attack on the social normative idea of attractive: Beauty isn't in the eye of the beholder, it should come from within, and we are really, really screwed as a gender because for women it doesn't, Salad suggests. For almost two hours, Callaghan pokes at how women see themselves and how men see them, leaving room at the end of the second act to make fun of men, too. The first act, as written, is patently absurd; the second, less so. The script, while making important points, isn't perfect, and any performance imperfection seems larger because of that absurdity.
As for Urbanite's production? The first act takes some patience, because if you don't come into the show expecting statements about messed-up beauty mores made with a big-ass romaine fight, you're gonna want to leave during intermission. The show is prop-heavy, which seems to get in the way of moving the action forward at times. One of the women who stayed for Act II Saturday night said during intermission she would have left if the critic for the Sarasota paper hadn't talked about how much better the second act was (after the show, she said she was glad she stayed).
The show's lone man, Guy (played by Benjamin Williamson), carries the burden of white male privilege for the whole of the first act, and does so well. He's adorably, irritatingly clueless as to what women want and also sexy when he criticizes his girlfriend for trying to please him instead of herself. His curls help, and no, we're not being snarky — the ringlets around his face earn him a pass because they make him look cherubic, which is precisely the sort of assessment this play suggests society needs to get away from making. When Williamson appears as a powerful woman in Act II, however, he comes across as the stereotypical feminist bitch the religious right wants people to believe all feminists are. This is not a good thing — just once can we see a powerful professional woman portrayed as a person and not a trope, please? Since the second act also portrays men as penis-driven, over-the-top bros, at least the sin is equitable.
Annabelle Mayock plays Tori, Guy's bulimic girlfriend in Act I, and she's splendid as an insecure, appearance-driven woman. Her interactions with Summer Dawn Wallace (who plays Meredith) are — unfortunately — overpowered by a romaine-heavy salad fight, which feels heavy-handed, and light cues that flash on and off too quickly, not giving the audience time to take in the quite-possibly-comical threesome positions director Ria Cooper places Guy, Meredith and Tori in. Wallace did a fine job with her "I pretend I'm not image obsessed but I totally am" vibe and had she taken it any further, ratcheted it up even a notch, she would have lost believability.
For all the statements it makes and the ways it does it, the show doesn't work nearly as well as the first two in Urbanite's season, Echoes and Northside Hollow, and that's regrettable. I blame the props — they take away from what could be divine moments with the cast. One of the most touching moments, the scene between Guy and his mother Sandy (played by Vicky Daignault), seems overshadowed by Sandy having her hands thrust in a bucket of what we assume is a piranha-like goldfish anti-aging treatment. Daignault also has the unfortunate scene where a red… rock? falls out of her vagina, which we later learn is her uterus. Daignault has oodles of talent and the awkward props don't add a thing to her performance, but, again, this is the absurd.
Absurd. This is exactly that, and if you like absurd theater, this is the show for you. You'll see the warnings on Urbanite's website: It's crass, vulgar comedy. If swearing and frank sexual talk in street terms offend you, this is not the show for you. As it stands, a talented cast offers us a fine performance of absurd feminist theater.
But please go expecting that. Don't go expecting heavy drama or light comedy and walk out during intermission.
Contact Cathy Salustri here.
This article appears in Apr 12-19, 2018.