The Waiting Room Opens its Doors at
The Western Stage
The Western Stage
continues its 2005 season September 23 with Lisa Loomer’s dark comedy The Waiting Room. What happens when the
lives of three women—a Victorian aristocrat in need of a hysterectomy, an
eighteen century Chinese woman with bound feet, and a modern day Jersey girl
with breast cancer—collide in a doctor’s waiting room? The answer: a brilliant
comedy that uses humor to explore often nightmarish relationship between women,
beauty, and medicine. The Waiting Room
plays in the Studio Theater,
It sounds like the set-up for a bad joke. What happens when a 19th century Victorian aristocrat in need of a hysterectomy, an 18th century Chinese woman with feet bound so tight her toes are falling off, and a modern day Jersey girl with breast cancer meet in a doctor’s waiting room? The answer is not a punch-line. It is Lisa’ Loomer’s The Waiting Room, one of the most lively and biting comedies to explore the highly topical relationship between women, beauty, and the medical profession.
Inspired by her own mother’s battle with cancer, Loomer’s play creates a world that exists in hyper-time, a theatrical convention in which the playwright allows characters from different historical periods to interact on stage. Notwithstanding the inherent theatricality of such a device, the juxtaposition of historical figures and their stories on stage can be used to make some very interesting thematic points, usually political. Such is the case with Loomer’s play. Drawing on some of the most well documented and shocking stories in feminist literature, she brings three woman from wildly different geographical locations and historical moments to show how the relationship between female beauty (often male defined) and the medical profession (usually male dominated) is not just a contemporary issue, but rather a timeless one. (For more on the theatrical devices employed in The Waiting Room, read supplemental article.)
One of the most
revealing aspects of Loomer’s play is embedded in the very juxtaposition of
these three women. What The Waiting Room
clearly dramatizes is that although the quest for beauty—even at the detriment
to ones health—may be a pursuit that crosses numerous historical and
geographical boundaries, the definition of what is beautiful is culturally
defined. Forgiveness From Heaven’s petite feet, for instance, may have been the
pinnacle of beauty in eighteenth century China, but today, in the West,
they—and the method by which they were achieved—would horrify anyone who would
see them. The same is true for
In tandem with these aforementioned issues, Loomer is also able to use The Waiting Room as a vehicle to explore and comment the complicated world of medical and sexual politics—from Sigmund Freud to the FDA. Yet, her wit and rhythm never let the play sink into the mire of didacticism. As a review in the trade paper Beckstage noticed “Lisa Loomer's funny-sad The Waiting Room sounds like a feminist polemic but plays like first-rate comedy and drama…it's now one of the high points of this year's Off-Broadway season.”
Lisa Loomer is currently one of the most successful playwrights and screenwriters working today. Originally an actress and comedienne, this alum of New Dramatists has used her biting wit and comedic timing to write a string of successful comedies including Looking for Angels, Expecting Isabel, and Living Out as well as numerous screen plays including the acclaimed 1999 film Girl Interrupted.