In a wild and obscene one-hour revue, Lisa Berger Carter and Lisa Haas extend the women's movement to its illogical conclusion, beyond the outer limits of good taste to a world where women are so proud to be women that they wear feminine hygiene products on their lapels.
As both the authors and stars of "Rita and Inez: The True Queens of Femininity," Carter and Haas are sometimes funny, occasionally hilarious, and sometimes not-so-funny."Rita and Inez" can be compared to "The Kathy and Mo Show" and "Black Velvet Pastures." In each of these plays, several women play a variety of roles in a series of skits. Salt Lake audiences fell in love with both those plays, but "Rita and Inez" is less likely to be sold out or held over. "Rita and Inez" is a more uneven production. Some of it is trite; some is over the edge.
Rita and Inez are just two gals working in a deli in Queens when they overhear the way one of their customers is talking to his girlfriend. He won't even let her decide for herself what size Coke she wants.
The incident changes their lives. Inez is personally so outraged about this woman's plight that she cancels her date to go watch her boyfriend bowl.
It's all Thelma and Louise after that.
Lisa Berger Carter is Rita, the redhead. Carter is from Salt Lake City. She originally produced this play for the Montana Repertory Theatre in Missoula. the show has also toured in Canada and Colorado. Carter is quite droll as Rita. She is coy, manipulative and strident, in turns.
But ultimately it is Haas, with her mobile face and comic wide-eyed expressions who is best able to get the audience on her side.
And it is really necessary to have the audience on your side if you are going to do a skit like the one attempted in the play's final scene. Carter just didn't have all of the audience with her in the Church of the Holy (figure out the synonym here for "birth canal"). Sister Inez charmed us with her consternation, but Sister Rita merely made us feel weird as she instructed the audience to hold on to the aforementioned private area while swaying to the beat of her tambourine and shouting affirmations of various other reproductive organs.
Some of us felt as uncomfortable as Evelyn Couch did when she attended her first women's meeting in the scene from "Fried Green Tomatoes." (We obviously need more work before we become as bold as Towanda.)
The funniest skit was the one about "Hamlet." It seems Rita and Inez have figured out something Shakespeare scholars rarely notice: Ophelia is the protagonist in this play. Using simple kitchen cutlery for puppets - Ophelia is a spoon and Hamlet is a fork - and working under the premise that "Ophelia got a bum rap," Rita and Inez give "Hamlet" a new and funnier ending.
Eventually they might wish to do the same for their own play.
- Sensitivity rating: Profanity and obscenity and consistent sexual themes. This play has more potential to offend than any play running in Salt Lake City recently. You probably won't want to give your mother tickets for Mother's Day. You best not go yourself either, if you were in any way offended by something you saw at Pioneer Memorial Theatre this past season.