duds and diaries

This is a terrible photo. One day, I'll fix it.

My first off-Broadway experience, Monday evening: Love, Loss, and What I Wore.

Written by Nora Ephron – of recent Julie&Julia fame – and her daughter Delia Ephron, it has been described as Vagina Monologues without the vaginas. Although it’s a fairly accurate description, there’s a little more to it than that. And while the thrust of the two plays is similar – women speak directly to the audience from a very minimalist set – the Ephrons deserve more kudos than that.

The play, clearly written for New York – both as it is today and as it once was – revolves around clothing. Shoes, purses, boots, sweaters, prom dresses, bathrobes … 27 vignettes about clothes. But this is no Devil Wears Prada. Why is it that a fuzzy bathrobe can call up childhood memories? How can a pair of boots allow someone to move beyond a life-changing experience? What is it about clothing – or, at the extreme end of a spectrum, fashion – that makes us remember?

A few particularly snazzy items stick out in my memory, when I think back: a brown suede pair of “heels” I got in sixth grade and a dress my Mom made me to wear to see the Nutcracker at some point, among others.

Samantha Bee, Tyne Daly, Katie Finneran, Natasha Lyonne and Rosie O’Donnell are the first five women to do the show. A rotating cast of fairly big names will follow in upcoming weeks. Monday was the first night of previews, which might explain why the actors had scripts onstage. (Theatre gurus, help me out. Is this what ‘preview’ means?)

I do know what off-Broadway means. The theatre, Westside Theatre on W 43rd Street, is a tiny, former Baptist church. And when I say tiny, I mean Guelph Little Theatre tiny. The building actually holds two stages, one on each floor, which creates awkward floor-stomping interruptions downstairs. (At one point it sounded like someone was doing aerobics up there.) Anyway, off-Broadway simply refers to a play performed in a theatre that seats fewer than 500.

Some profits from the show go to Dress for Success, “an international not-for-profit organization that promotes the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.”Cool.