Week #15 : 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' by Nora and Delia Ephron

Five women dressed all in classic and well fitting black dresses sitting on a stage in front of music stands.  Doesn't really sound like an interesting play does it... but as the stories in 'Love, Loss and What I Wore' unfold, we hear from 20 different characters (and some others to help tell their story) about the importance of memory in clothing.  These characters deliver moving and hilarious monologues based on pieces of clothing from their past that have remained imprinted in their memory for one reason or another.

Each actor plays 5-7 characters telling their stories or love, loss, heartache and embarrassment (and one very torturous story about rape).  
The main character, kind of like a narrator (but kind of not, at the same time) 'Gingy' is the only character for that actress and is the centre of the plot who sets the tone for each section of the play (based on Ilene Beckerman and her book of the same name).  Her stories are numerous and she has a more detailed plot line than the rest of the characters.
Each of the other characters delivers a shortish 3-5 minute monologue about the importance of a specific piece of clothing, like a tuxedo or Eggplant coloured dress (my personal favourite story in the whole play!) or a pair of boots, a bathrobe that holds infinite memories or a pale blue and white chiffon prom dress.  

The stories are set out in semi tonal waves, each slightly pertaining and responding to 'Gingy's' last clothing story.

Cast from 2009: Tyne Daly, Rosie O’Donnell,
Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran and Natasha Lyonne.

The most hilarious tale is about the uselessness of the handbag - One item that every woman has and an item that every woman dreads, which is directly from Nora Ephron's collection of acerbic essays "I feel bad about my neck." - "I hate my purse.  I absolutely hate it.  If you're one of those women who think there's something great about purses, don't even bother listening because I have nothing to say to you."
The saddest is the tale of the olive green boots - "I thought my boots gave me a kind of mysterious, Bohemian charisma, tough but tender, rugged but sensuous, poetic but unself-conscious, like Joni Mitchell."
Some of the other tales encompass the decision to wear heels or be able to function properly in society - 'I started wearing heels again.  Oh the pain, I can't think.  but I look gorgeous.  I had to choose - heels or think.  I chose heels."
The blunders of fashion 'There was, for a very brief moment in time, the paper dress.  And I had one." 
The trials of finding the right clothes for your body shape - "My mother as the most competent human being alive but she gave up on me clothes-wise.  She would send me off alone in a taxi to a store called Jane Engel on the southeast corner of 79th and Madison, and they'd bring me clothes and I'd try them on.  There was a dressing room with three mirrors, and no matter which way I looked, there I was, as big as a house.  There has never been a good time to be fat, but this was a particularly bad time on account of Audrey Hepburn.".

The monologues are intermingled with 'clothesline' mini tales.  Each one about a poignant clothing moments in every females life: 'What my mother said', 'The Bra', 'Madonna', 'The dressing room', 'The closet' and the importance of 'Black'.

The 'Madonna Clothesline'

  However you see the monologues, there is going to be at least one tale that each woman can respond to in some way.  Be it just the memory of the way a particular dress made you feel, the memory of a non-descript outfit you were wearing when you heard elating (or devastating) news, or that all important choice of a wedding dress.
These all encompass happy, shocked or terrified moments in every woman's life.

Playwright Nora Ephron (and co-wrote by her sister Delia Ephron) bought us perfect romantic/comedy films as: 'When Harry Met Sally', 'You've Got Mail', 'Sleepless in Seattle' and 'Julie and Julia' (she also directed the last three on this list).  Also an accomplished Essayist, Nora Ephron wrote heartfelt female stories of love and loss and the ways in-between.  This play is no different. 

'Love, Loss and What I Wore'  was first officially staged at the Westside Theatre in  New York for Off-Broadway (there were numerous readings of the play on Off-Off Broadway at the D2 Theatre) in 2009, it has increased in popularity ever since.  

The cast consisted of Tyne Daly, Rosie O'Donnell, Samantha Bee, Katie Finneran and Natasha Lyonne.  It soon became a revolving cast including stars of stage and screen (and the comedy circuit): Joy Behar ('The View'), America Ferrera ('Ugly Betty'), Blyth Danner, Rita Wilson, Barbra Feldon (Agent 99 in 'Get Smart'), Kirsten Wiig (SNL and 'Bridsesmaids'), Kristin Chenoweth (Broadway star - Glinda in 'Wicked'),  Jane Lynch, Kathy Najimi (Sister Act 1 & 2), Janeane Gafofalo, Melissa Joan Hart ('Sabrina the Teenage Witch') and Rhea Perlman.

An interview with Nora and Delia Ephron about the play gives you an understanding into the creation of some of these stories.  There are real life stories from the playwrights themselves, stories from Ilene Beckerman's book as well as stories from friends and relatives of the author and playwrights.  We see glimpses of how Nora and Delia, in conjunction with Ilene Beckerman's book, designed the elements and the importance of the moments in the play - each punctuated by the 'closeline' moments.

Nora Ephron passed away in June of 2012 from pneumonia aggravated by myelodysplastic syndrome which is a pre-leukemic condition.  Only close friends and family knew of this and it was not made public until her death.

This play has something for every female in the world and also allows males to catch a fleeting glimpse of what it is like to be a female.  Hopefully this play will help men to understand why females can take so long to choose a dress/shoes/handbag for certain situations!!

Next Week : 'The Frogs' by Aristophanes