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LASplash.com: Los Angeles Performances The Booby Trap - Review - Hooray for Hooters By Alex D Palmer There's a lot to like about breasts. They are sources of inexplicable power over men, of life-giving nourishment to infants; indicators of major life events (the move into womanhood, the early stages of pregnancy) and hopefully enough joy, fear, and funny stories for a two-hour play. Back after a successful run in 2004, Booby Trap is playing at the Hudson Theatre in Hollywood through November 12. Eleven women and one man perform skits and cabaret numbers about breast implants and bra-buying, telling stories about stuffings gone wrong, or the challenge of keeping a boyfriend's attention in a house full of big-breasted women. All the while celebrating the camaraderie that comes with having cans.
Booby Trap is a pretty weak collection of skits. Some of the bits actually work well, like Jules Roenitz' memory of her P.E. teacher bluntly telling her, 'young lady' you need to get a bra', and Jeanie Van Dam's pained description of lactating after suffering a miscarriage. But most of the others try too hard to make you laugh or cry. A random monologue about a homeless girl getting sexually accosted demands our sympathy when it hasn't earned it, and a few upbeat skits abruptly shift into a somber mood, condescendingly signalling to the audience, 'but let's get serious for a minute'. The toughest bit to swallow is probably the last: an all-cast 'We Are The World'-style sing-a-long about breast cancer awareness that, while performed with the best intentions, is more than a little embarrassing.
The ensemble may be too dedicated to including a wide range of female perspectives into the show. With almost forty bits crammed into the two hours, it seems like an actress is just hitting her stride in a boob story or boob song when it abruptly ends and a new one starts. While having twelve people onstage makes the dance routines more energized, it makes the play run in a dozen different directions without finding any coherence.
It's also hard to get engaged when you don't know if these are the women's actual experiences. Part of the show's effectiveness is that all the players were creatively involved in the writing, and most of them deliver the stories they wrote. But several stories are performed by someone other than the writer, or are so exaggerated you wonder if we're even supposed to take them as truth. While this should not make the bits any less effective, in a show that emphasizes personal experience, the inconsistencies confuse the message.
But despite the pacing problems, the actresses are obviously enjoying themselves and the play takes its mission seriously to not just to entertain, but to educate women and contribute to the fight against breast cancer. At the end of the play's first run in 2004, the show donated almost $14,000 to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and will do the same with all the profits made on this current run. Maureen Muldoon, the show's creator and co-director, conceived of the play as an homage to her mother' a victim of breast cancer and has cast her own 11-year-old daughter in the production, emphasizing the personal importance the show has for her.
Muldoon's stories of watching her mother courageously face a losing battle with breast cancer form the over-arching narrative of the show. But the power of her story is undercut by the fact the choice to tell it in four separate installments sprinkled throughout this busy play. The show would do well to remember that, like so many A-cups out there would tell you, sometimes less can be more. Click here for more info Published Oct 8, 2006 © Copyright 2003-2004 by LA Splash.com |
