‘Menopause Two’
courtesy of ‘David Jackmanson’

This morning I noticed that Bethesda Theatre is showing two of my hometown’s favorites in their 2009 Off-Broadway Series.  Yesterday, Menopause the Musical “A Hilarious Celebration of Women and the Change” opened at the theater. Come May, Mike Dugan’s one-man-performance “Men Fake Foreplay” will open. The website for the later, I was interested to find, contains praise-filled blurbs from both the Syracuse New Times and the Auburn Citizen. 

That being said, Syracuse, I love you, but sometimes, your tastes are not my tastes (I have a google alert for “Syracuse ridiculous disaster“). 

Menopause remixes pop songs into topical parody: i.e. “Puff, My God I’m Draggin,” “It on My Hips” (nee’ It’s in His Kiss) and “Stayin Awake, Stayin Awake.” The popularity of this show alone intrigues me. Reviews assert that you “can’t help but laugh” and I’m willing to believe it.

“Men Fake Foreplay” has garnered similar accolades (not only from the New Times) but I’m skeptical. Maybe it’s the women’s-studies-heteronormativity flag going up in my liberal arts brain. The show is billed as a self-aware, frank discussion of the unfortunate secrets of men approaching women. One of the pull-quotes from the book by the same title begins thus:

“Its unrealistic to think that you can have sex with every woman. But its realistic, and more fulfilling, to be admired by all women for the way you treat one of them…”

Okay, good start.

“…Women love having something every other woman desires but cannot have. Think ‘shoes’.”

Ruht-roh.

Like I said, I’m willing to be proven wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this might prickle me as overly-generalizing the thoughts of all men and all women and squishing them into their stereotypical M or F boxes — i.e. Women <3 shoes. 

That being said, readers on Amazon’s marketplace all seem to love the book and its overarching theme is treating people right. Who can disagree with that?

Acacia O'Connor

Acacia has lived in DC since graduating from Vassar College with degrees in English and Italian. She cries daily at the thought of her imminent departure from this beloved city, as she will begin a Fulbright teaching grant in the Campania region, Italy come October. She’ll be blogging that experience too. Get at her: acaciaO@welovedc.com or follow her on twitter.