Theater Reviews

Jul 11, 2001 - Gothic North's "Six Women with Brain Death" Is Alive and Well

By Jack Neal

"Welcome to the world of expiring minds," the cast of six women belt out off the top, providing an audience no idea of what lies ahead. But then how could they, when they hardly know themselves? Once the revue's fourteen set-ups of musical vignettes are complete "Six Women With Brain Death" is about lots of things - too many, and too confusing, for one quick sum up.

"Six Women With Brain Death, or Expiring Minds Want To Know" is being presented by the Gothic North Theater Company at its theater in Northwest Reno Thursdays through Sundays through July 15 (2001).

"Six Women" is a bizarre, quirky, delightful adult - with the emphasis on adult - musical revue that covers vast amounts of life's territory. It's relationship to Italian reality-illusionist Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author" is spooky. Instead of six characters in search of an author as in Pirandello's play, "Six Women" has eight authors (imagine what writing sessions must have been like) searching for six "real" characters in search of answers.

To make this plot of comparisons thicken even further, Pirandello's plays evolve from his wife's insanity of dealing (poorly as it happened) with what's real and what to do about it when reality is found out, if that's ever possible. Which leads directly to "Six Women's" subtitle "Expiring Minds Want To Know." Brain death it seems comes from the day-today torture of not understanding the relevance of fantasies, illusions, delusions and twists of fate that make discovering truth murky and often impossible.

What composer and lyricist Mark Houston has done with the life and times of the authors' six women is not unlike what Marvin Hamlisch did with the true stories of the dancers in the original "A Chorus Line." He sets lives to music and word and he does it with catchy music and biting, funny lyrics.

He comes cleverly to grip with the illusion-reality of a series of topics that play out as fascinating observations on life: Are TV soap operas as real as the gossip of neighbors? Are bible stories any more real than allusions to God as an alien come down to "beam us up" to heaven? Can children tell the difference between fantasy and reality in nursery rhymes? Among topics explored are soap operas, the mystic fantasy of Ken and Barbie, the brutal reality of high school reunions and what does and does not define femininity.

Kimberly Golish Gibbons, Clemencia Golbov, Pat Halverson, Tanya Jean Kluck, Julie Robertson and Jami Wright play a variety of characters in the show, leaving viewers the intriguing puzzle of determining just how much of each performance comes from personal experience. Happily, their performances are rather equal in talent and presence, which gives the production a clean sense of balance.

To a fairly minor extent, the use of recorded music restricts the timing of the actors. On the other hand, knowing that nothing will change from night to night also gives the actors an added sense of security. So much for security. For my money the show needs a bit more snap and chutzpah to make the acerbic bite of its themes explode with more zip and punch. And yes, I know, sometimes that's easier said than done in the community theater milieu.

David Zybert has directed and he's done a solid job of keeping the action inventive and unimpeded from scene to scene. Elizabeth Weigel's choreography is simple, effective and doable. If you like quirky, female perspective things, "Six Women With Brain Death" is a wild and crazy show that at any given performance may pay off in your touch-the-right-nerve department. The materials were written in the late 1980s. It helps in the hit-the-right-nerve department that they're as relevant now as then.

"Six Women With Brain Death, or Expiring Minds Want To Know" can be seen Thursdays at 7 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through July 15 (2001) at the Gothic North Theater, 3697A Kings Row in the Viewcrest Center, Reno. For information call 775-329-7529.