Review - Love, Loss and What I Wore

Clothes Make The Woman Remember

I can't say I've ever really associated important events in my life with what I was wearing. Oh sure, I remember the powder beige tux I wore to my 1977 senior prom (my date picked it out) but since moving to New York I think it's safe to just assume I was wearing black whenever anything significant happened. Not so for the ladies of Love, Loss and What I Wore, a show that my female guest assures me gives an accurate portrayal of how women tend to hold important memories in the stitches of their apparel. And though such sentiments may be foreign to my nature (or perhaps nurture) I found the ninety-minute evening warm, funny (often hilarious), cleverly written and terrifically performed.

LL&WIW, if you don't mind the abbreviation, began life as Ilene Beckerman's best-selling memoir of "Gingy" who, through words and illustrations, writes her life history as recalled by the clothing she wore as a way of reminding her children that she wasn't always a mother. She was once a girl who had friends and did stupid things just like them. In adapting the book for the stage, sisters Nora and Delia Ephron have crafted a piece where five actresses are seated in a row, their scripts in front of them on lecterns, reading excerpts from Beckerman as well as stories contributed by their friends.

The excellent opening night ensemble consisted of Tyne Daly, Rosie O'Donnell, Katie Finneran, Samantha Bee and Natasha Lyonne, but the rotating company will feature a new collection of stars taking the stage every four weeks. While the text often has the cast ping-ponging their speeches back and forth (director Karen Carpenter does a great job of continually varying the tempo of the piece), Daly marvelously anchors the proceedings with her sole responsibility of playing six segments as Gingy. With a rack of posters beside her that carry Beckerman's book illustrations, Daly gracefully takes us through Gingy's rebellious childhood, three marriages, personal tragedy and somewhat lonely senior years with warmth and dry wisdom.

On the more raucous side, Rosie O'Donnell's brand of straightforward humor makes her stories of the humiliation of bra-shopping and the inconvenience of purse-wearing achingly funny while retaining sympathy for her character. But she also delivers sweet pathos in a self-written monologue about seeing her step-mother wearing a bathrobe strikingly similar to the one her deceased mother would wear.

Finneran, Bee and Lyonne mostly work together delivering short, snappy observations ("Never wear velvet before Rosh Hashana.") but they get also get individual chances to shine; particularly in Finneran's triumphant portrayal of a breast cancer survivor who finds a unique way to make herself feel in control.

And if you'll notice from the photo, costume designer Jessica Jahn has them all wearing black. Because as Rosie O'Donnell exasperatingly blurts out, "Can't we just stop pretending that anything is ever going to be the new black?"

Photo by Carol Rosegg: Tyne Daly, Rosie O'Donnell, Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran, and Natasha Lyonne.

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