For the first 15 minutes of 5 Lesbians Eating A Quiche, the Fringe show currently enjoying a run at the SoHo Playhouse, we were a little worried that we were watching a one-trick pony with a great name. Here we were, at the annual quiche breakfast of the "Susan B Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein" and here were five women who really, really like their quiches. Except maybe, just maybe, when these gals say quiche they really mean vagina? Groan. But then, as they say, it got better.
Writers Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood could have just kept their show a campy little thing about repressed "widows" in 1956 America. After all, the Susan B Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein's motto is "No men. No meat. All manners." And the ladies won't stop harassing that poor woman in the front row. But instead the authors and the cast stick to their convictions, trust in their five ladies and go there. A third of the way through, just as the audience has settled in to the show's rhythms, the lesbians go and fully embrace the worst fears of the 1950s when a Red Dawn crisis arises. And it works!
This being a former Fringe show about lesbians there are, of course, scenes of graphic quiche eating, snatch jokes, pantsuits jokes, and also a few ladies kissing (one even takes her clothes off). But also a few surprisingly emotional beats, a hysterically funny revelation that we won't spoil for you and a genuinely surprising conclusion. We just wish they'd saved some of that quiche for the audience. It looked really good.
Through November 20 at SoHoPlayhouse // 15 Van Dam Street // Tickets
