by Terry Holzman

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

WHO: Linden Waddell

WHAT: Hello Again! The Songs of Allan Sherman

WHERE: Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre

WHY: You don’t need to know who Allan Sherman was or recognize his Grammy-award winning comic novelty hit “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter From Camp)” to wholeheartedly enjoy this cabaret-style show. The day I saw the show the audience ran the gamut from pre-teens to senior citizens and—from the roaring laughter—I sensed that the entire audience was entertained. Linden Waddell is marvelous as she interprets a handful of Sherman’s 250 song parodies, tells some of his story, and beautifully pays homage to a comedy legend who paved the way for singer-songwriters like “Weird Al” Yankovic.

Linden Waddell shares the stage with her musical director, arranger and accompanist Marjorie Poe, and the show was directed by Janet Miller. All three extremely talented women are show-biz vets and the quality of the show reveals and revels in their gifts. Linden’s delivers the songs with humor as well as great feeling for her muse. She has a great voice and stage presence and knows how to use funny props. She and Marjorie Poe do a song together that had me in stitches.

Though I am old enough to know “Hello Muddah,” I knew nothing about the man who wrote that song. Sherman was an American comedy writer and tv producer and created his hilarious parodies to entertain friends at parties. Songs like “Chopped Liver” (to the tune of “Moon River”) “There’s Nothing Like a Lox” (“There’s Nothing Like a Dame”), “Your Mother is Here to Stay” (“Our Love is Here to Stay”), and “Smog Gets in Your Eyes” ( “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”) were some of my favorites.

Sherman’s friends convinced him to record an album, which he did (though the record producers did not want to pay royalties on show tunes so they asked Sherman to look in the public domain for songs to parody) and that’s how his first album “My Son, the Folk Singer” (1962) came about and went on to become the fast-selling album up to that time.

Beloved by politicians to movie stars (JFK and Sinatra gave his albums as gifts), Sherman performed at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall; headlined in Vegas and guest-hosted the Tonight Show. He wrote novels and even took a shot at an original musical, penning book and lyrics for “The Fig Leaves are Falling” (1969). Linden sings a moving song from that show.

This enchanting 55-minute show, crafted and performed by pros, breezes by and is a true crowd pleaser. The next show is Sunday, June 18 (Father’s Day), so bring your Fadduh…AND your Muddah!

HOW: http://hff17.org/4580

by Constance Strickland

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

WHO: Bernadette Armstrong

WHAT: MOMENTS

WHERE: Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre

WHY: This play quietens the mind and requires you to listen. One incident in a woman’s day takes her back to a moment that she had silenced, forced herself to ignore its happening in hopes that she would forget. Yet life does not work that easily; as we know, moments can come back to haunt us. We witness a woman needing to deal – a woman in control of her life, yet in need of releasing a haunting experience she has carried alone. A piece of theatre that gives a louder voice to an issue that is usually carried in silence, as well as not discussed socially over dinner.

HOW: http://hff17.com/4364

by Terry Holzman

Quick peeks at the work of #HFF17 female playwrights, “Women on the Fringe,” by Fringe Femmes who’re behind the scenes this year. Click Here for all Check-Ins.

WHO: Laurie Jones, Katie Jones, Mandy Stertz, Kimberly Van Ness

WHAT: FAIR

WHERE: Asylum @ Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre

WHY: In 1871, Laura D. Fair murdered her lover on a boat off the coast of San Francisco. Laura’s trial became less about the murder and more about judging her moral character. This ensemble play might have made an interesting judge-and- jury, real-life crime drama, with a message about the treatment of women in 1871, but that is not this play. FAIR, delivers the feminist message in an inventive and entertaining way… a play-within- a-play, executed in a hilarious melodramatic style (complete with fake mustaches) and delivers a powerful indictment of Laura D. Fair’s unfair treatment. 

FAIR opens with the cast onstage preparing for a performance of FAIR. One of the actors asks if she is playing “Susan Banthony” which is corrected to “Susan B. Anthony” by another cast member. Those clever first words set the tone for the play which jumps back and forth in time in a nimble yet cohesive way. I could tell immediately that this work had been developed over a period of time: the fast pace and furious blocking, the actors’ physical agility and focus, the quick blackouts and scene changes, the clever use of minimal props, and the writing—witty, provocative, assured and meaningful. It takes time for all these elements to coalesce into a well-made production.

And sure enough, the program states that The Wishbone Collective began this ensemble-devised play in the fall of 2014. They began “scraping together information about “twice-widowed, twice-divorced” Laura D. Fair—a woman so scandalous she was placed among the ranks of history and literature’s top-shelf femme fatales and yet [she has] somehow faded from memory.” Much of the dialogue is from a primary source—the recorded transcripts and letters printed in the “Official Report of the Trial of Laura D. Fair for the Murder of Alex. P. Crittenden”. There are five other sources listed in the program as well. Wishbone did their research.

There is never a question that Laura D. Fair is guilty of the murder. In this telling, Laura Fair’s guilt is almost beside the point “I did it. I don’t deny it” she states early on, and so Laura’s morality becomes the focus of the prosecution. The trial becomes a titillating media sensation and where much of the play’s hilarious social commentary unfolds.

The public vilification of someone who challenged society’s conventions by having many lovers and husbands is compelling. Making the trial a melodrama is a stroke of genius. The words are from actual court records but are delivered in a such a way that underscore the trial’s ridiculousness. Witnesses are called to remark on Laura’s “reputation of chastity” to which each replies some iteration of “bad” and “real bad.” She is called a “she-devil” and a “vile temptress”. The prosecutor blames the combination of “a controlling man” and the defendant’s “menstrual cycle”, stating Laura was a “victim of circumstance…and her own biology”. (That line got huge laughs.)

FAIR is a complicated tale woven into an entertaining melodramatic format. It made me laugh, it made me think, and it made me feel how unfair society still is to women in so many ways. The next person who says a woman is the way she is is because of PMS needs to read about Laura D. Fair. One more show on June 16th !!

HOW: http://hff17.org/4420