L!: The Lesbian Musical!

The Breakup Notebook. Hudson Backstage Theater, Hollywood. 1/27/06.

Apparently, lesbian musicals are a good place to meet gay men. Or at least the audience was filled with them this particular night. The Breakup Notebook was a totally fun, funny, lesbian-themed musical and there was a lot of laughing out loud throughout the show. The music was fun and happy and generally really well done and the cast clearly worked hard and were quite talented. In fact, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole evening.

While everything layered on top of the basic structure of the play was pretty fun and fabulous, something about it deep down bothered me a bit. I think it may have gone through too many rewrites and its strayed a long way from its original concept. The whole "Break Up Notebook" of the title appeared in the first scene, but was never mentioned again. The play had nothing to do with a notebook.

What really bothered me, however, was the main character. She was constructed as this lipstick lesbian everywoman, but I didn't really sympathize with her. I frequently found her neurosis more annoying than endearing, and the conclusion. Heidi Godt performed admirably, but the conclusion in which the character takes charge and finally dumps a girl feels more like a therapy session than a dramatic accomplishment. Rather than learning to be independent, the character ends a relationship because the girl she's seeing doesn't want a commitment. Basically, the whole play builds to a very conservative celebration of monogamy.

Much more interesting than Helen, however, were Patrick Bristow as Helen's gay best friend, Bob, and Melody Butiu and Jacqueline Maloney as Helen's lesbian friends were wonderful. Each delivered a nuanced and hilarious performance. I was more interested in the saga of Monica and Joanie's wedding than I was in Helen's tribulations. Monica (Melody Butiu) played the only even vaguely butch role in the whole play, and she did so masterfully. Patrick Bristow as Bob was wonderfully funny but not horribly stereotypically campy, which was nice. The only problem I had with him was that in the hilarious "Chicks and Dicks Bossa Nova" in which Bob and Helen make fun of the stereotypes of lesbians and gay men respectively, Bristow does a great impression of a lesbian, including many stereotypes that could apply to Helen, but then Helen neither mocks Bob effectively nor evokes stereotypes remotely similar to Bob. She mimics circuit queens and twinks, while Bob is a nice gay nerd with glasses.

Christine Lakin gave stand out character performances, especially in her rock star solo, "I'm on Fire." The only problem was that compared to Helen, she looked to be about 12 and thus the whole scene had a weird dynamic. I wondered what it would have looked like to have that role played by someone a bit more butch and less manic.

Speaking of butch, this show wasn't. This was clearly promoting the L-Word version of Los Angeles lesbians, all with long hair and too much makeup. The only conceivable relationship within the play seemed to be very vanilla, very monogamous, very conservative. Even the supposedly butch Monica ended up getting married in an L-Word reminiscent tight-fitting girly suit.

So while I've complained a lot about some fairly nitpicky issues related to this play, the music is great, the performances are fabulous, and I spent a large portion of the evening laughing out loud. Even though it bothers me a bit politically, I still very much enjoyed the show and would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun queer-themed night at the theater.