Ready yourselves, gentlemen, because the women of the “uncommon bell curve” won’t hold their tongues.
The nine women of LAB! Theatre’s performance of “Uncommon Women and Others” each present their own story of a college girl as she attempts to plan out her post-college life in the second-wave feminist society of the 1970s.
As the play opens, five of the women are reunited after college, sharing their success stories and reminiscing about their days at the all-girls Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts.
The plot is driven strictly by a series of flashbacks, leaving the actresses to create a story through their varying character portrayals.
All nine women are uniquely complex and isolated by personality, yet each of them are affected in various ways by the difficulties of a male-dominated society.
The play addresses both sides of the feminist movement with, not only career-minded women like Amanda Baldiga’s Kate, but characters like Susie, a Goodie Two Shoes who embraces the role of the homemaker wholeheartedly.
Margaret Burrus’ portrayal of Susie was satirically rich without being cloying as she oozed with shallow kindness, laughter and enthusiasm.
Holly, played by Katie Chelena, is strong minded senior who is unsure of what she will do after college. Chelena is able to successfully tackle a lengthy phone dialogue in which her anxiousness and hesitation in graduating is authentically poignant.
Freshman Kristi Stout’s performance as Rita, a promiscuously extroverted senior, is brazenly entertaining as she tackles a myriad of sexually perverse monologues.
For a somewhat banal plot, “Uncommon Women” is refreshing. The play’s dialogue is witty, the characters are shockingly honest and the acting is fresh.
See “Uncommon Women” in Kenan Theatre Monday at 5 p.m. Admission is free.
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