The Schuster Theatre is celebrating women’s voices and going wild with “GRRRLZ.”
The first main stage show of the season stars an all-female cast made up of seven different women. Rebecca Coleman, Lynda Jifon, Lauren Loop, Jade Mitchell, Natalie Pertz, Mary Stephens and Brianna Woods compose the cast of “GRRRLZ.”
The show was a bit difficult to advertise because it has never been done before. The Schuster Theatre did not buy rights to a show, but instead created this unique performance for its opening main stage show.
“GRRRLZ” is described as a celebration of women’s voices. The show exhibits this through different monologues and skits performed by the cast. Some of the common themes of the show include creation, relationships, struggles of getting ready and how ideals change as women grow up.
However, the show is not to be mistaken for a bra-burning, man-hating, radical feminist-driven performance. It can be better described as a variety show.
The skits and monologues in “GRRRLZ” range from a woman telling a man not to propose to her because he makes her a nicer person, to a skit of two angels deciding to make childbirth excruciatingly painful because men might think it’s unfair that the women get to have the children.
Most of the show is quite comical in a silly way, which can be difficult to pull off. The jokes in the show, however, were well-timed. Even the pantomime of a girl’s daily routine with each actress showing how she uniquely gets ready makes most of the female audience giggle.
While most of the show was comedic, it exhibited a few more serious sections, such as a woman describing a poor relationship with her father or a girl who doesn’t understand why a guy who claims to like her doesn’t want to be with her.
While only a couple of women performed more serious monologues, it would have been nice to see some more complex monologues from some of the other actresses. These monologues added some texture to the show, however “GRRRLZ” felt more heavily weighted on the comedy side.
Another section of the show that added a different twist occurred about midway through when the actresses on stage looked at the audience members, asked if they knew what was going on and proceeded to perform a dance somewhat similar to the pantomime at the beginning of the show.
The dance is performed well, but it doesn’t really fit with the show and is a bit difficult to follow for some of the audience members. Even though the show seems as though it was meant to be a little random, this section may be a bit too out of the blue.
Overall, “GRRRLZ” is a pretty good show to open the Schuster Theatre’s main stage season. The performances by the cast members were quite comedic and the compilation of the show was well structured for the most part.
The show will continue Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. To reserve seats, call the Schuster’s box office at 814-871-7494.
KHADIJA DJELLOULI
