“Girls Only — The Secret Comedy of Women,” which only stars a two-women cast began running in early September and will end in mid-October at the Main Street Theater in Chelsea Market. | Courtesy of RicOrnel Productions
Media directed toward women often has a bad reputation. Women’s comedies always seem badly written and tired with plots about screaming, middle-aged women who obsess over clothes and men.
Lately, Hollywood and other media have been trying their best to shake this stereotype with movies such as “Bridesmaids” and proving very successful — both critically and commercially.
However, instead of trying to defy the stereotypes, “Girl’s Only — The Secret Comedy of Women,” a sketch play created by Barbara Gehring and Linda Klein, embraces them in a play that is not only painfully unfunny, but is a downright bore to sit through.
Before the play even begins, the audience is hit over the head with two nameless characters played by Tracy Ahern and Keri Henson sitting in a bright, pink bedroom in their underwear singing along to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” This sets the tone for the rest of the play, as the actresses bring in the audience to simplify the complicated female experience into bras, puberty and sanitary napkins.
The play uses skits, puppet shows, commercial and PSA clips, and audience participation to haphazardly jump from jokes about life as a young girl, to the history of women, to jokes about life as an adult woman.
The only real laughs come from the improvisation, as Ahern and Henson show that they can work with the audience and bounce off of them organically.
However, this was ruined as they sometimes overstepped their boundaries. In one skit they took two purses from the audience members and dug through them, flashing the contents to the audience. Henson even took out a phone and put it down her shirt.
The cherry on top of the cringe-comedy sundae proved to be one skit consisting of a “crafts corner,” where the actresses dressed as old women and joked about crafts that could be done using sanitary napkins.
Tampon angels were flung onto the crowd and Ahern awkwardly tried to skate on the floor with pads stuck to her shoes, as all semblances of dignity or subtlety were downright obliterated.
At its heart, the play comes off more as created by a 30-year-old man whose only interaction with women is from ‘80s chick-flicks, rather than two real women. The entire play is one big inside joke, which proves rather awkward for the people who aren’t in on it.
Ahern and Henson segmented jokes about memory boxes, Girl Scouts and locked diaries with a wink and a “Right, ladies?” as if these are experiences shared by all women.
As a result, a play that should be catered toward all women becomes a play catered toward straight, white, middle-class and middle-aged women. And even then, many of the jokes fall flat anyway due to awkward delivery and poor acting.
At its best, the play does service its very specific audience. At its worse, the play downright demeans and insults women, with stereotypes and tired jokes that prove women’s comedy still has a long way to go.
Why should a play be sanitized and crafted to appeal to ALL women? Why should any play done by women be obligated to advance ANY version of what women should be portrayed as, vs. simply enjoying the real common experiences that many women have shared? Some use art to reflect life, others use it to advance an agenda. And some girls just want to have fun. And that’s ok. Some guys do, too. We are all different, and there are an abundance of straight, white, middle class, middle aged women who relate to the content and laugh over the foibles/attitudes they’ve either experienced or witnessed as they grew up. It doesn’t mean that they currently subscribe to those attitudes. Maybe you are lesbian or transgendered, non-white, lower-class or upper-class, young and hip or old and wise, and never joined a scouting organization, enjoyed a sleepover or never made jokes about feminine hygiene products. Why not view it as a cultural experience instead of lambasting other people’s life experiences presented on stage? As long as Real Housewives, Toddlers and Tiaras and Honey Boo Boo are airing, I can’t believe the media cares tremendously about showing women in a positive light.
P.S. – the theater extended the engagement until sometime in February.
I realize that my observations and comments are very late in coming, thus bordering on the irrelevant; however, I have just read this review, and LCHaro’s reply to it, and it immediately strikes me that the LCHaro reply seems excessively defensive and hostile. Perhaps this is someone attached personally or professionally to the play, and that would explain the otherwise irrational need or desire to defend a project that so obviously catered to the lowest common denominator. And isn’t that the universal lament regarding most of the entertainment industry today? If any one medium should strive to do just a tiny bit better, I should think it would be the theater. As a member of the viewing public, when I am getting ready for an evening at the theater, I always hope for something at least slightly above the lowest common denominator! And isn’t a comedy that treats it’s subject matter (whatever it may be) with just a little bit more intelligence and wit, always the better for it?