Thong Show

Sketches get under women's skin

A A A Comments By Andy Propst Tuesday, Jan 2 2007

An undercurrent of bemused rage runs through Matt Morillo's Angry Young Women. From the piece's opening monologue in which a woman (Devon Pipars) expresses her dismay over the craze for low-rise jeans that reveal the wearer's thong, to the show's final sketch in which an actress (also Pipars) attempts to perform her first nude scene, comedy, and commentary intermingle pungently, albeit with mixed results.

photo: Jonathan Slaff

Angry Young Women in Low-Rise Jeans With High-Class Issues

Details

Angry Young Women in Low-Rise Jeans With High-Class Issues
By Matt Morillo
Theater for the New City
155 First Avenue
212-868-4444

More About

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Offstage Voice Newsletter: (Up to multiple times a week) Information on theater and the performing arts.

Another sketch involves a woman (Angelique Letizia) explaining to her virginal cousin (JessAnn Smith) that, when it comes to sex, women can be just as piggish as men. While this sounds good in theory, when the older woman's newfound boyfriend (Thomas J. Pilutik) reveals one of his fantasies, she becomes hypocritically prudish.

Theatergoers will find some terrific performances in here, particularly from Pilutik, who also plays the average joe caught in the crossfire, and from Smith as the scared virgin, just learning the meaning of "vertical smile." Unfortunately, Morillo, who also serves as heavy-handed director, has a tendency to overwrite his comedy. As a result, one wearies of each sketch well before its end.

This cannot be said of the show's second monologue: A woman laments the unfair expectations she has about men, assumptions instilled in her by the behavior of her nearly perfect father. As this monologue (beautifully performed by Letizia) draws to a close, she asks the fathers in the audience to ignore their daughters, so that girls can go out into the world with a true sense of how men behave. It's comic, sad, a bit angry—and highly satisfying.

Check out this week's featured ad for News