Hot ticket in Port Washington: 'Menopause The Musical'

A year ago, when "Menopause The Musical" was playing two blocks from her home in Port Washington, Robin Hazen got some laughs and pleasurable moments on many show nights. This year she's considering actually buying a ticket to see a performance.

Crowds of laughing, chatting women poured out of the theater last summer just as Hazen, 57, an operations manager for a magazine publishing company, was walking her dog Lucy. And on most nights, she says, she stopped to join in the post-performance commiserating and delight.

"It's a group experience," said Hazen, who saw the show several years ago Off-Broadway. "A lot of women can identify."

That may be the strongest factor in helping the show find its audience since it debuted nearly a decade ago. "Menopause The Musical" focuses on four women who meet at a Bloomingdale's lingerie sale, bonding and breaking into song over their common experiences with the so-called change of life. To the tune of Irving Berlin's "Heat Wave," they belt out: "I'm having a hot flash, a tropical hot flash; my personal summer is really a bummer, I'm having a hot flash."

An audience in the knowAlso bonding frequently are audience members, as well as, apparently, passersby like Hazen, who's looking to get a group together to see the show during this year's return engagement at the Jeanne Rimsky Theater at Landmark on Main Street. (Playing through Aug. 29. Call 516-717-3990 or visit landmarkonmainstreet .org.) Indeed, the show, performed all over the U.S. and in 14 other countries, has been compared to a rock concert, a happening, a celebration, and is attended by groups of friends and family members - many of them returning again and again for yet another dose of that communal sisterhood.

Through dialogue and song lyrics set to tunes from the '60s, '70s and '80s, familiar subjects stemming from "the change" are addressed: mood swings, hot flashes, night sweats, chocolate binges, memory lapses, aging children and aging partners. For instance, to the tune of Smokey Robinson's "My Guy," newly dubbed, "My Thighs," the four characters sing, "Nothin' I can do 'cause it sticks like glue to my thighs. . . . "

At the root of its sustaining success? The presentation allows women of a certain age to celebrate rather than dread the inevitable, says Madeline Seifer, director of Hofstra University's Marriage and Family Therapy Clinic. It pokes fun, and while in real life many women can experience annoying and nerve-racking symptoms, "It's good to know you're not suffering alone," said Seifer, who saw the show two years ago with friends in Manhattan.

"There are four women in the show, and the audience is considered the fifth woman," said Shorey Walker, 40, of Glen Cove. In the Port Washington production, she plays the role of a Soap Star, who meets and befriends a Professional Woman, an Earth Mother and an Iowa Housewife. So many times, she said, women have come up to her saying, "That was me." Or, "You are my mother or my sister."

"It's unlike any show I've been in," said Lydia Gladstone, 58, of Greenlawn, who plays the housewife. Women in the audience "laugh until they cry about something they usually only cry about."

Written by Jeanie Linders, who ran event marketing and entertainment advertising firms, the show was first performed in Orlando in 2001 and has been sold close to 11 million tickets worldwide, according to the show's public relations manager. Last year's Port Washington run, also presented by GFour Productions, drew some 18,500 attendees. ("Menopause" also played East Islip's BayWay Arts Center earlier this year.) Proceeds of merchandise sold at performances - such as the cardboard fans with the slogan "It's not The Silent Passage anymore" - benefit the Jeanie C. Linders Fund, a nonprofit that helps organizations that support women.

The show also has had a ripple effect on area eateries whose owners are pleased with its return. Mike McGlynn, general manager of Louie's Oyster Bar & Grille, said that last year his dining room started filling up the last week of July, and once again he's seeing patronage build, thanks to what he calls "the menopause impact."

I'll drink to that

Finn MacCool's restaurant is returning its special offerings - "hot flash" martinis, 10 percent off entrees and complimentary Irish coffee - to theatergoers.

Still, the main economic boost "would be that groups of women who come to Port Washington to see the show would be attracted to the area and come back another time to shop and dine," said Bobbie Polay, executive director of the Port Washington Chamber of Commerce.

One of last year's attendees who saw the Port Washington production was Nathalie Aujard-Pearson, 41, of Manhasset, a jewelry designer and stay-at-home mom who is not yet "menopausing," but knows the day will come.

What she appreciated about "Menopause The Musical," she said, was getting educated on some of the symptoms, as well as hearing the "big taboo word" said aloud, making it "lose its taboo."

Aujard-Pearson, a board member of Landmark's executive committee, is planning to see the show again this summer with friends. Last year, she was impressed to see younger women in the audience. Such cross-generational appeal can go a long way toward better understanding what women go through during that particular time in their lives, she said.

Then, there was the humor of it all. "What made me laugh the most was to hear everybody in the room laughing," she recalled. "When I came out, my ribs hurt, I had laughed so much."