I dragged my friend Zoe (read her blog here) along with me tonight to the premiere of Fighting Chance Productions' staging of "Uncommon Women and Others." Written by the late great Wendy Wasserstein, the play follows a group of girls at Mount Holyoke, a liberal arts college in Massachusetts (Emily Dickinson studied there, but left before graduating), during the 1970's. They are on the eve of their own graduation, and struggling to choose from the myriad options feminism has suddenly made open to them. A-Type Kate (Marianne Mandrusiak) is determined to attend law school but wonders if she wants her life to just "fall into place." Warm and bubbly Samantha (April Cameron) is marrying her college sweetheart because she believes she's only "a little talented" at many things and is destined to play a supporting role in life, and bombshell Muffet (Toni Nielsen) wonders where her prince is. Rita (Sarah Szloboda), the loudmouth extrovert of the group, is preparing to write the next great modern novel, bookish-but-beautiful Leila (Leala Selina) is determined to move to Iraq to study anthropology, and tomboy Holly (Natalee Fera) is really just overwhelmed by all the choices.
My first impression was that the feminist issues in Wasserstein's play have become dated. Among my girlfriends and I, getting a diaphragm is no longer a revolutionary thing - nor is sleeping with boys in college. We no longer feel the choice after school is between marriage and career, between competing ideals of traditional domesticity and the modern, "feminist" career track. We don't talk about penis envy. Some of the inner conflicts of the Uncommon Women felt tired and trite. However, there were some themes, and some lines, that still rang true. Muffet asks plaintively, "Where do you meet men after college?" I've had that conversation. Samantha's confession that she feels just a little talented at a lot of things - I've said that.
The women meet for a drink 6 years after graduation, and Holly confesses that she lost touch with her friends because she felt they didn't need her anymore, though she desperately missed their companionship. Zoe and I agreed that women still feel that need for the "sisterhood," which often is neglected in favour of career, romance, children. I found myself smiling and nodding when the still-single Muffet, who has settled for a mediocre life selling insurance in Connecticut, remarks at the reunion that she never thought she would support herself, and that she's proud of that, if nothing else.
The material may have been tired, but the women really committed to it, and convincingly portrayed a group of college friends with the closeness brought about by four years of rooming together. Sarah Szloboda was a comic standout as Rita, as was Jennifer Shirley as Carter, the girls' bemused (and mute!) freshman tag-along. April Cameron brought a warmth and sincerity to Samantha, who is almost apologetic for choosing to be a wife, but deliriously happy once the choice has been made. While Wasserstein's characters are, in essence, stereotypes, the actors managed to portray them as three dimensional, complex young women. Kudos to director Jacqueline Bennett on the casting, as there was tremendous chemistry among all the actors.
I can't say "Uncommon Women and Others" is the type of edgy fare I've come to expect from Fighting Chance's non-musical productions, but it was entertaining, and the message stayed with Zoe and I long enough that we were still debating the relevancy of its feminist themes when we got home. Plus, the soundtrack of 1970's hits forced me to go home to download a plethora of James Taylor and Cat Stevens tracks.
"Uncommon Women and Others" runs at the PAL through Saturday. Tickets are available here.
Zoe's portrait of us - she's in gold on the left, I'm in tulips on the right.