Dreamcatcher’s production of ‘Parallel Lives’ is a four-woman powerhouse

By Peter Filichia/For The Star-Ledger | March 10, 2010

It was originally conceived as a two-person show. But now that Dreamcatcher Repertory Company is staging it with four performers, it turns out to be twice as good.

Dreamcatcher has taken this liberty with “Parallel Lives: The Kathy & Mo Show,” first written and performed in 1989 by Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney.

It makes for quite the girls’ night. Nevertheless, there’s enough comedy here to make men laugh in recognition, too.

Director David Miceli reasoned that with such gifted performers as Laura Ekstrand, Noreen Farley, Jessica O’Hara-Baker and Harriett Trangucci in the troupe, why not share them all with South Orange audiences?

These four stellar leading ladies are fearless in performing sketches about all things feminine, from empowerment to makeovers to hygiene. In many of the skits, sisterhood is shown to be powerful—although not in one where O’Hara-Baker and Ekstrand play two real sisters who must painfully admit that they have nothing in common.

Trangucci is a performer everyone should know, for she’s a marvelous comedienne in the Carol Burnett style. As a result, she has no problem finding her inner child in a playlet where she portrays a 6-year-old who’s trying to make sense of the religious dogma.

Harriet Trangucci & Laura Ekstrand

Her partner-in-childishness is Ekstrand, who’s one of the most elegant-looking actresses in the state. Such a look of top-notch breeding doesn’t usually lend itself to comedy, but Ekstrand proves that she can let down her well-coiffed hair when the script requires it. That’s also true in a scene where she joins O’Hara-Baker in playing two lesbians, who deal with the same problems that dog heterosexual couples.

Farley joins Trangucci in a send-up of teenage best friends who test each other with those immature questions of what-would-you-do-under-impossible-circumstances. That Dreamcatcher is one of the state’s most intimate spaces allows an audience an extra benefit: Catch the hilarious socks that Trangucci wears in this scene.

The script also calls for a Southern redneck sexual harasser. That part’s easy prey for Farley, who’s always superb when she must play a masculine role. As the object of the man’s affection, Ekstrand lets us see what the average woman must endure in a bar at the hands of such a dolt. It’s the show’s most poignant piece, and the two actresses make it work beautifully.

Miceli has mixed and matched the women very well. O’Hara-Baker and Farley excel in a spoof of avant-garde performance art. (Both women revel in their “meat-free, male-free environment.”) No less amusing are Ekstrand and Trangucci as the two aging suburban women who watch them and pretend to be entranced. (They took a women’s studies class because they felt they’d have no trouble passing it.)

Add talk of pedicures, Botox, moisturizers and tampons, and it makes for quite the girls’ night. Nevertheless, there’s enough comedy here to make men laugh in recognition, too.

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