Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Betty power
Tales of modern-day Betties make for tart comedy.
The current occupant of the White House set off a feminist firestorm when leaked audio from a conversation before a prepresidential “Access Hollywood” appearance revealed this gem of romantic advice from the megalomaniac/narcissist playbook: “Grab ’em by the p----.”
Collective rage ignited, and women all over the United States (and beyond) began knitting or buying distinctive pink hats. Then they took to the streets to protest the country’s apparent swing back toward traditional gender roles, as though Betty Friedan and “The Feminine Mystique” had never happened.
Playwright Jen Silverman had her say on the power of a woman’s privates (and other subjects)
before the election. Her play “Collective Rage: A Play in Five Boops” premiered at Washington D.C.’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre in September 2016. It has since been produced in other major cities and has now made its way to the stage of Fort Lauderdale’s Thinking Cap Theatre at the Vanguard, where its slightly altered title is “Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties.”
The “Boops” and the “Betties” are from the same root source: Betty Boop, the sexy cartoon flapper dreamed up by Max Fleischer in the 1930s. That Betty, aimed at adults, had an of-the-moment hairstyle, big eyes and a perfectly curvy petite bod. But the movies’ Hays Code soon prompted a PG makeover for Ms. Boop, turning her into a woman less foxy and more familyfriendly.
“Collective Rage,” a tart and observant comedy that has plenty to say before its less-than-dynamic ending, features five characters named Betty.
Betty #1 (Ann Marie Olson) is the bored wife of a wealthy man, a woman who finds herself increasingly agitated as she listens to the doom and gloom that has become the news. Betty #2 (Betsy Graver) is a lonely beauty whose marriage has turned sexless. Betty #3 (Vanessa Elise) is a bisexual Latina powerhouse who works at Sephora but hungers for more. Betty #4 (Gretchen Porro) is a lesbian who has long had a thing for Betty #3, though her crush is completely one-sided. Betty #5 (Carey Hart), gender-fluid and sporting a fresh set of tattoos acquired in prison, is trying to restart her life by teaching women how to box at her uptown Manhattan gym.
Each woman goes on a journey involving identity, self-empowerment and that place of pleasure and pain that Eve Ensler wrote about in “The Vagina Monologues.” “Collective Rage” may hold the record for uses of the “p” word in a play; for sure, not many scripts get around to having three of the characters use hand mirrors to examine that part of themselves.
The actors in “Collective Rage” create colorful, detailed portraits of women who share a name but otherwise have distinctive, resonant identities.
Increasingly, Stodard’s work with her Thinking Cap collaborators has become theater worth anticipating. Stodard’s choices and her interpretation of them are smart, engaging and provocative. That’s “Collective Rage” in a nutshell.