Review: 'Musical' a hot flash in the pan

Menopausal women are a force to be reckoned with. When you get them alone, they are one rowdy bunch.

There was a lot of cheering and whooping it up at Tuesday's sellout performance of "Menopause the Musical" at the 1,200-seat Rogers Theater in Modesto's Gallo Center for the Arts. The show had a final sold-out performance Wednesday night.

There was only a smattering of men in the crowd Tuesday, leaving the ladies free to let their hair down. Many people came in big groups and enjoyed an alcoholic beverage or two in the lobby. The Red Hat Society women were there in full force, wearing purple dresses, feather boas and loud red hats.

Before the show even started, women in the balcony were dancing in the aisles to disco music played over the loudspeaker.

Written by marketing whiz Jeanie Linders, the show has been a huge hit around the world since it debuted in 2001 in Orlando, Fla. Four very different women meet at a lingerie sale at Bloomingdale's and proceed to gripe about the symptoms of "the change."

What follows is 90 minutes of song parodies set to the music of pop hits from the 1960s to the '80s.

Some of them are pretty funny — like "I Wish We All Could Be Sane And Normal Girls," set to the music of The Beach Boys' "California Girls." Others that hit the mark include the ode to antidepressants — "Thank You Doctor," set to "Help Me Rhonda" — and "Staying Awake," set to "Staying Alive."

Everything takes place on a single bare-bones set with a few doors that served as elevators for the department store.

Monique W. Whittington had the biggest voice and the sternest attitude as the professional woman. Rebecca Fisher was the prettiest and the most fun-loving as the aging soap star. Jeanne Croft was the sweetest as the Iowa housewife, and Pammie O'Bannon was the most mellow as the Earth Mother.

They come up with dozens of jokes about hot flashes, failing eyesight and memory, low male sex drives and expanding waistlines. To me, the whole thing got repetitive after awhile, but I was clearly a minority and am too young to be the target audience anyway.

No offense to the cast members, who were all talented, but I found the audience more entertaining than the performance. They applauded and whistled throughout the show, laughing loud and hard at every joke. In the many shows I've attended at the Gallo Center over the past year and a half, I've never seen an audience so enthusiastic.

Bee arts writer Lisa Millegan can be reached at 578-2313 or lmillegan@modbee.com.