Housewife versus career woman at Aurora Theatre
A trio of college friends: one guy, two women, and both women want the guy. Twenty years pass, they reunite, and nothing has changed. One of the women got him but the other one still wants him, though we may find ourselves asking why, since he’s no great catch.
And did I say nothing has changed? In fact lots has changed, including the world. What happened? Feminism happened. It kept evolving and, as it turns out, one of the women is an expert on the topic. She’s the author of books she’s discussed on TV with the likes of Charlie Rose, but a problem is: she’s not an expert on herself, so the reunion shakes up her as well as her two former pals.
That’s Gina Gionfreddo’s smart and funny Rapture, Blister, Burn, now at Aurora Theatre, in which the modern feminist landscape defines the battleground on which its entertainingly mixed-up trio fidgets and fights.
The play is all about how the uncertainties of modern existence trip up supposedly smart people. College educated, Catherine and Gwen and Don still can’t figure out how they’re supposed to live their lives in a world where nobody knows what makes sense, where rules and expectations slip through fumbling fingers like soap in a shower. Dean of a third string college, Don has married Gwen, but in younger days he was tight with Catherine. She hopped off to London for advanced academic study, and Gwen snagged him. Since then Catherine has achieved intellectual superstardom, while Gwen has become a housewife, mom to two kids and a sort of mom to Don, who needs to be prodded to get off his butt.
You’d think that Catherine and Gwen would defend their choices, unmarried career woman versus emotionally fulfilled housewife, Gloria Steinem versus Phyllis Schlafly, but surprise, surprise, that doesn’t happen. In the course of a seminar on feminism that Catherine gives in her mother Alice’s living room to Gwen and Avery, a brainy, mouthy twenty-something, we discover two dirty little secrets: Gwen longs to chuck marriage/motherhood to flee to New York to finish her degree and mount a hot career, while Catherine envies Gwen’s married state.
Might they switch roles?
Where does Don fit in all this? Does anyone get what she/he wants? You’ll have a good time finding out at Aurora Theatre, where director Desdemona Chiang gives Rapture, Blister, Burn (the title comes from a Courtney Love rock song) a fast and funny pace. It’s a gab-fest, with plenty of polemics, but the talk is grease to the wheels of Gionfreddo’s rollercoaster tale. Chiang is backed by a fine support team: set designer Kate Boyd who does wonders with Aurora’s small stage space, and Ashley Rogers (costumes), Brendan Aanes (sound) and Heather Basarab (lighting).
The peppy cast is up to all the smart (and not-so-smart) talk and the twists and turns of the plot: Rebecca Schweitzer as Gwen, Marilee Talkington as Catherine, Gabriel Marin as Don, Nicole Javier as Avery, and Lillian Bogovich as Alice.
A bright, funny snapshot of a moment in modern life, Rapture, Blister, Burn plays on Addison Street until October 5th, followed by Breakfast with Mugabe, directed by Jon Tracy. For tickets/information call 843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org.
–ROBERT HALL