Everyone knows about the benefits of taking Viagra for men with sexual dysfunction. But the little blue pill has been valuable to others, most notably standup comedians whose Viagra jokes have found a permanent place in their repertoire.
If you take in a performance of "Sex Please, We're Sixty" at All An Act Theatre, you'll also learn how this 13-year-old medication can anchor a stage play. It's a very funny comic farce, a post-Viagra giggle fest, by Michael Parker and Susan Parker.
Directed by Larry Lewis, the six-member cast -- two men and four women -- easily carries the audience along from sly snickers to laugh-out-loud responses. The plot is sex-filled but never embarrassingly vulgar or obscene.
The setting is the Rose Cottage Bed and Breakfast, operated for years by the prim and proper Mrs. Stancliffe (Ruth Scandale). One of her neighbors, Henry (Gerry Munn), an amateur chemist, appears daily with a bouquet of fresh flowers and a proposal of marriage. But the stubborn proprietor repeatedly refuses his pathetically phrased offers.
The other male character in the play is Bud "The Stud" Davis (Alan Koch), a goatish fellow who shows up every day to scan the list of expected female arrivals at the BB. If prospects look good, he's on hand to help with the luggage -- despite a bad back. Bud's motto: "He who checks the chicks in gets to check the chicks out."
Fortunately for him, three women do check into the Rose Cottage. The first is Victoria (Betsy Butoryak), a romance novelist who, it turns out, has writer's block and romance problems.
She's followed by Hillary (Peg Billig), a former acquaintance of Henry. She agrees to be a test subject for a pill that Henry has developed. It's called Venusia (after Venus, the goddess of love), and it holds the promise of enhancing the libidos of menopausal women.
The last woman to show up is southern belle Charmaine (Connie Bach), a tall, gamy redhead who has brought with her some sexy sleepwear and a libido that doesn't appear to need much enhancing. Her lines could have been written by Jeff Foxworthy. Here she is on Bud the Stud: "That little bugger was busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest."
We clearly understand what she means when the Viagra-bolstered Bud is called upon to perform a sexual hat trick involving all three women guests. The first act ends on that note.
The humor at the center of Act Two originates after the women are tricked into taking Venusia. They then arrange for Bud to take it, though he thinks he's taking more Viagra. The hapless Henry also takes Venusia, hoping it might embolden him with Stancliffe.
Alas, Venusia has the effect of reducing both men to a condition in which they exhibit the symptoms of female menopause. The fun reaches a peak when, sobbing uncontrollably and fanning themselves for hot flash relief, Bud and Henry complain of feeling fat and bloated. They accuse the women of being insensitive to their plight.
Munn and Koch are much fun to watch, as are the women in this preposterously plotted farce. Stancliffe nicely carries off her transformation from purse-lipped proprietor to sexually charged. Butoryak gets to experience first hand the passions of the bosom-heaving beauties she creates in her novels.
Billig has fun helping Bud relax his bad back, and Bach shows she knows how to whip her men into obedience.
"Sex Please, We're Sixty" has no problem appealing to all adults, not just seniors who may like a little blue humor to relieve their arthritis. So visit the Rose Cottage, where rose-colored walls and many doors lead the characters into and, ultimately, out of all sorts of Viagra-induced mischief.
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