Entertainment :: Theatre
The Superheroine Monologues by Kay Bourne
EDGE ContributorSunday Sep 20, 2009 The Superheroine Monologues has made a rocky flight from the proscenium stage to thrust-styled staging (seating on three sides) at the Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre. It hasn’t adjusted well to the new configuration which dampens the enthusiasm that greeted the production’s initial run last Spring at Boston Playwrights’ Theatre.
The show plays better in its second half, partly because the audience, especially on one side, moved to the center section where viewing was optimal. (Audience reaction is key to the success of a parody such as this.) It seems that in reconfiguring the production for the new space, the staging -- by Greg Maraio-- isn’t fully realized.
There are other problems as well. With the addition of more verbiage, the first act -- an introduction to the familiar pop culture superheroes and villains from 1940s to 1970s with monologues has become a bit bloated. (The action begins in their homeland, called Paradise Island, so named because the inhabitants are all women!) The magic of this often hilarious parody from John Kuntz and Rick Park comes with its fast pace, as your eyes do taking in a comic strip. In this expanded version the writers didactically pound home the sociology of women gaining their rights, reflected by the iterations of super heroines, when that message is better left implied as it was before.
Opening night saw two brilliant performances, the first of them from Cheryl D. Singleton as Storm (from X-Men). In her scene Storm is stuck in a classroom teaching some para-normal students (added for this version) and not being assigned superheroine missions by the wheelchair bound Professor X (whom she considers racist in his decision-making process). Storm, by the way, came about in the 1990s due to cries from critics of Marvel Comics of there not being a black presence in comics. But, she points out, Marvel hasn’t proliferated the number. Singleton is absolutely on top of the material, never wavering.
Also magnificent was Maureen Adduci, a Bette Davis look alike who first appears as the imperious Hippolyta, ruler of Paradise Island and mother to the woman who’ll assume the identity of Diana Prince, a cover for Wonder Woman (the ins and outs of how that happens is over-written). Adduci will later surface as the super heroine who completes the saga. She makes her personal story touching as silly as it is.
Phoenix Theater (formerly Way Theater Artists) and Company One have something going with The Superheroine Monologues which could have a long and happy life particularly if the script is tightened up some. The current version continues at the BCA through Sept. 26.
The super heroines grappling with personal issues as they battle monstrous evil-doers makes for a show everyone can enjoy. They’ll even take something from with its insights into how these female champions’ anxieties and achievements encapsulate American pop culture as it has slowly, ever so slowly, come to make room for the liberated women.
The Superheroine Monologues continues through September 28, 2009 at the BCA’s Plaza Theatre through 539 Tremont Street includes the BCA Plaza Theatre and the BCA Plaza Black Box. For further information visit
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