How many ways are there to repurpose a “feminine product?”
Can there be any hope at all of finding a way to combat “boob sweat?”
And if it’s “dry down there,” might it not explain why your Aunt Millicent’s lonely vagina has been secretly yearning for someone—or even just something—to pay it a long-overdue visit?”
Hot Flash! What a Feelin’!—now onstage at Footlights Theatre in Falmouth through August 31—works up its very own rip-roaring, deliriously happy houseful of sweat while trying its damndest to supply Maine’s Delicate Set with the answers.
To pull off this fiercely galloping, screamingly funny olio, FTC’s executive artistic director, Michael J. Tobin, needed just two demonstrably capable, inherently lovable women to tell the tale of the mood swings and other behavioral oddities that come with a woman’s “Girls-Gone-Wild” journey through the Middle Years.
And trust me: he found them! Julie Poulin and Nancy Durgin whipped FTC’s packed house into an absolute frenzy with their Opening Night stage antics. Each woman brought her own uniquely powerful stage presence to every one of their played-to-perfection characters. Think, Two Formidably Talented Women Take Over the Ed Sullivan Show and you’ll understand what it was like, on Opening Night, for the audience to inhale this show’s fast-moving, action-packed series of lady-centered vignettes—all without passing out from a non-stop, rib-tickling barrage of laugh attacks.
Monmouth’s Poulin, an actor, director, stand-up comic, improv performer, wife, mother, and grandmother—oh, so many talents has she, and she’s good at every one of ‘em!—delivers an irresistible cornucopia of laugh-out-loud moments—every thing from nipples with the uncanny ability to light up a stage to feminine napkins doubling as flight goggles and, of all things, a bewitching pair of tampon-ical, string-dangling earrings.
Durgin, who’s played a host of demanding roles here in Maine over the years, including Mrs. Lovett, Mama Rose, Dolly, and Hansel & Gretel’s Mother—her very first show—was an absolute tour de force on Opening Night, bumping and grinding her way through scene-after-libidinous-scene and, for one truly unforgettable moment, even playing the trumpet—I’m not kidding—between her legs.
The set for Hot Flashes—formidably detailed and stunningly authentic as the bullseye reincarnation of an all-American, blue-collar diner—was as good as it gets at Footlights—and that’s not easy, because I’ve never seen a set at Footlights that wasn’t remarkably well done.
And just in case this show might not be enough funny food to satisfy the insatiable appetites of Footlights’ laugh-hungry audiences, Tobin has spiced things up with video clips of Lucy Ricardo promoting Vitameatavegimen, Mary Tyler Moore laughing hysterically while at Chuckles the Clown’s funeral, and Tobin himself, making side-splitting cameo appearances as both a roaring, hairy-chested Lady-Chaser and a spectacularly ornamented, wildly gyrating Drag Queen.
As one of only five men in the audience on Opening Night, I can’t resist telling you how much I loved this show—and not just as a reviewer. After all, for any male, it’s sure to be a window into the many reasons the claim that “Women Are from Venus, Men Are from Mars” is so entirely believable in so many ways.
It shouldn’t surprise you that I’m urging women of any age and background to hot-foot it down to Footlights and see this show. But as I see it, why stop there? “The brave men who love them” would be wise to see it, too!
And why? Because I feel certain that just as Hot Flashes deepened my love, respect, and admiration for the women in my life, it will do so for you as well. So don’t be shy! Remember: just being there, watching Julie Poulin and Nancy Durgin work their womanly stage magic, will be a guaranteed way for you to score invaluable points with the women you love.
— Ross Alan Bachelder, www.artsaplenty.me, 7/26/23
To reserve tickets to Hot Flash! What a Feelin’!, call the Footlights box office (open 24-7) at 207, 747-5434 and leave your name and number. For directions to Footlights and show dates and times, go to Facebook or other social media.