Love, Loss, And What I Wore

Me and Giggles went to go see Love, Loss, and What I Wore tonight a play by Nora and Delia Ephron, based on the book by Ilene Beckerman at the Westside Theatre.  It's a rotating cast, which at our performance featured Stacey London from What Not To Wear as well as some other actresses which I don't really know - Helen Carey (Julie and Julia), Victoria Clark (The Light in the Piazza), Nancy Giles (CBS Sunday Morning), Ashley Austin Morris (The Electric Company).

When we arrived at the theatre and looked around the place, we thought we had accidentally wandered into a showing of Menopause the Musical (yes it's a real show - the hilarious celebration of women and the change!) as the rows were filled with groups of gray haired women, vigorously fanning themselves and it was not particularly hot.  There were surprisingly a few men in attendance either accompanying a spouse/girlfriend or solo and weird (dude at the end of our row I'm talking about you).

(the man in front of us was with his wife - he looked normal)

The lights went down and the five women were seated on the stage and used clothing and accessories to tell stories about life - some poignant and most humorous - interlaced with thoughts about dressing room trauma ("Are these mirrors distorted?") closet panic ("I have nothing to wear"), basic black ("Does this come in black?") and things your mother says ("Is THAT what you're wearing?").  Some of my favorite parts were the shoe dilemma, a woman's decision between heels or thinking - since heels hurt so damn much you can't think - and the first bra stories, which made me think of my first - a sports bra of course.  I being a true tomboy, wanted no part of the bra, having zero interest in wearing something that looked so restrictive and uncomfortable.  I was about 11 when my mom was telling me that I should really get one, but it was only after an all-day soccer tournament where my tiny chest hurt so badly after that I needed a Tylenol and to lie down, when it finally sunk in that I did need one.  "I told you!" scolded my mother, completely unsympathetic.

Victoria Clark was a standout telling a funny story about mourning the loss of a perfect shirt that disappeared one day and how she tried to replace it with eight new shirts that each had features of the perfect shirt, but was just not the same.  She had also broken up with her boyfriend at around the same time the shirt vanished, but in no way was she transferring her sense of loss from the break up to this shirt (*wink wink*) - hmm eight replacement "shirts" sound like a good plan!  She also told a sad but hopeful story about a breast cancer survivor, focusing on a beautiful lace bra to get her through the pain of the reconstruction.

Do I recommend this show?  Yes!  It was funny and touching in that Sex and the City movie type way - but I would not dream of taking a man to this thing!