Summary
The marketing plan for Menopause relies on a clever blend of the comforting and familiar on one hand, and the audacious and in-your-face on the other. Most of the songs are golden oldies from the 1960s and 1970s, but Irving Berlin's "Heat Wave" goes back to 1933. All are lovingly spoofed with new lyrics, usually turning on some form of feminine distress. "Heat Wave," for example, is now, "I'm having a hot flash/ A tropical hot flash/ My personal summer/ Is really a bummer/ I'm having a hot flash." Also comforting are the appearances of three characters in plus sizes: Power Woman, Earth Mother and Iowa Housewife. And the fourth, a thin, beautiful Goldie Hawn-like blonde called Soap Star, at least puts on about being worried over the onset of wrinkles and gray hair.
The most uproarious laughs come not from jousting against Puritanism but rather [Jeanie Linders]' inventiveness in adapting familiar songs. She cites credits for 24 originals, as she must, but gives the revised versions of only three. This is a pity, as audience reactions make it difficult to get all the new words. Among the bigger hits: "My Husband Sleeps at Night" for "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," "My Thighs" for "My Guy," "Stayin' Awake" for "Stayin' Alive" and "Puff, My God I'm Draggin'" for "Puff, the Magic Dragon."See the full content of this document
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Cramp Steamer
Cramp Steamer
The middle-age feminine mystique provides music and laughs in Syracuse Stage's MenopauseYou have to look at the title Menopause: The Musical a few moments before you realize what makes it different from any other title, say, My Fair Lady, West Side Story or Anything Goes. The difference is that trade r...See the full content of this document
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