LUST AND PITY
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Women. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em. Elaine and Jessica both say that all they want is someone who “appreciates” them, but what they really want is someone they can dominate. Elaine hopes to land her blue-collar prey with her wifely skills and demure virginal air. Jessica hopes to get what she wants through an ever-wet readiness and a running monologue that makes phone sex sound like Dial-a-Prayer.
A blatantly male-chauvinist story, right out of Playboy? Yes, but with a twist–the psychiatrist is Ruth, the mechanic is Amy. And what is remarkable is how little the fact that all four characters are women changes the dynamics of the play. The universe depicted in Hilary Sloin’s Lust and Pity, being shown as part of Bailiwick Repertory’s Pride Performance Series, is right out of a 50s sex comedy. Jessica is the empty-headed bimbo; Elaine, the shrewish husband hunter; Amy, the good-hearted dummy; and Ruth, the naive but sincere bachelor pressured by the demands of a selfish society.
