Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche
Award-winning off-Broadway comedy hit Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche has titillated audiences this week in its Australian debut at the Brisbane Powerhouse for Melt: A Celebration of Queer Arts and Culture.
The gorgeous cast of talented Australians – Lauren Jackson, Samantha Turk, Ellen Bailey, Sophie Rose & Catherine Alcorn were hand-picked by director Nathaniel Cooper to portray the tale of five fabulously repressed 1950’s Stepford-style wives who gather for the annual breakfast of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein. It is at this event that the respectable widows enthusiastically taste each other’s quiches – what could possibly go wrong? Well, with the cold war on America’s door-step, the ladies soon find themselves trapped in their community centre turned bomb shelter, and all sorts of revelations ensue.
Hailed as an interactive show, the audience is initiated into the secret society and issued with name tags at the door and woe to poor Marjorie who dared to put meat in her quiche the year before, undermining the group’s sacred motto “no men, no meat, all manners”. The casualness of the affair between the cast and the audience makes for a uniquely entertaining evening where heckling just becomes part of the show and the quick-witted windows put those naughty audience members right back in their boxes.
Seventy minutes runs quickly at the whim of this juicy, innuendo-laden romp that borders on the absurd and soon the sisters begin to admit the truth behind their window-hood and confront an apocalyptic future without their prize winning quiche. It’s plainly obvious these actresses relished their roles in parodying these camp old stereotypes and strong, consistent performances came easily.
Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche is fast paced and ridiculous, but as with all great comedy the jokes are born of the serious study of the nature of human behaviour and pack mentality. Now showing at the Brisbane Powerhouse until Sunday February 8, you can rest assured that you don’t have to enjoy quiche to enjoy the fun! The frocks are fabulous, the females are fantastic and thankfully all the quiche devouring remains on the stage.
