Women Laughing Alone with Salad from Theater Wit is a funny mess. Based on the popular meme of stock photos of women who always seem to be having the time of their lives while eating a bowl of tasteless raw vegetables, the play tries to satirize this concept. The concept being that only stringently healthy and active women can be happy, and the only happy women are stringently healthy and active. As if the hysterical laughing accompanying the salad in the photo will trick us into loving the most boring meal known to humankind.
The best scene might have been when the four person cast did exactly what it says on the tin: they smiled and laughed and eventually full-out boogied while eating salad. The satire here was on point, and I loved the straight-up mocking of ridiculous advertisements aimed toward women. Look at how much FUN we're having depriving ourselves of any carbohydrates - a thing our bodies *need*, by the way!
As far as the actual storyline goes, it was, like the lettuce confetti that rained down onstage at one point, all over the place. Many things were trying to be said, I think, but the play never makes a clear point. Nobody learns anything, characters or audience. The audience is led to believe that all skinny women are annoying and bulimic and "real" women are confident in their voluptuousness, until the rug is pulled out from under us and we learn that, surprise, the "real" woman is a slave to salad, too.
There were a lot of elements that, on the surface, give this play an edge: nudity, a threesome scene, an Oedipal complex, some gender-swapped roles, which were entertaining, but to me seemed like folderol distracting from the fact that the story was haphazard.
I appreciated the bravery of the actors and playwright Sheila Callaghan for taking the leap -- the acting was well-done and the script did shine through occasionally with some great, funny lines -- but this play was anything but salad: Big, flashy empty calories. Fun to eat, but with little nutritional value.
Women Laughing Alone With Salad is playing at Theater Wit through April 29th. Tickets at TheaterWit.org.
*Extended through May 2nd!
