KC Fringe "5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche" review by kellyluck

Love, Lies, and Recipes at The End of The World
Rating: 4

5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche
KC Fringe Festival

Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche is an unusual play. Set in an idyllic alternat 50's universe, we find ourselves members of the Susan B Antony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein, a Women's Society of widows together to share fun, fellowship, and quiche. Lots of quiche.

The troupe (no artist names given) rely mainly on ensemble humor and camp, bringing us into the pastel world of the idyllic advertisements that peppered the magazines of the fifties. It's time for the annual meeting and quiche bake-off, a pean to the egg in all of its perfect glory. They waste no time establishing characters and interrelationships between the five club officers, which is just as well because it isn't too long before World War III starts, and the clubhouse is rocked with a nuclear blast.

Fortunately, the ladies are not unprepared. The house has been reinforced with multi-layer protection, radiation proof doors, and canned goods enough to last the whole club four years. Faced with four years of life together in this enclosed space, old facades are dropped, forgotten histories dragged into the light, confessions come thick and fast. Fortunately, the production never loses its camp sensibility, reveling unashamedly in the up-to-eleven bathos of its situation.

Generally speaking, the ensemble is quite tight, the five players embodying their parts down pat. The story is delivered well, and the audience interactions are handled well (I'm always a bit leery of the device of singling out one member of the audience, but it is handled here well). The set design was a bit rough, probably designed more for portability than for aesthetics, but it does the job and sets the scene.

There is one more performance of this show on Saturday night at the Just Off Broadway theatre. It is an interesting production, and in the right company a very enjoyable evening indeed.