What Every Girl Should Know

I just got back from the play What Every Girl Should Know at Impact Theater, which is under a pizzeria here in Berkeley. Given the location I had low expectations, but it was the best play I've seen in town since The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Diety.

Written by my Facebook pal Monica Byrne, What Every Girl Should Know tells the story of four young Catholic girls in a home for wayward types on the Lower East Side. There's a temptation to give the girls types—Joan's the smart one, Lucy's the innocent, Ann is tough, Theresa a wild one...but the girls are written sufficiently well that the stereotypes fall apart. Joan is more naive than we think, and Lucy is a drunken firebug! All four have been sexually abused, and are engaged in sexual explorations with their pillows and a log book. What every girl should know, they don't!

But newcomer Joan might. Her mother's in prison for distributing Margaret Sanger's materials on contraception, including the the pamphlet from which the play takes its name. At wit's end in the stultifying atmosphere of the institution, the quartet create a little cult for the veneration of Sanger. And they need a patroness like her as well, as three of the four are in the joint for sexual irregularities.

As an event, What Every Girl Should Know was pretty amazing. The space is tiny, but was well-suited for the hothouse environment, and the acting was generally good to great. The other theaters in Berkeley have more money and are more likely to have union actions, but the performances are often mediocre. Not this time, for the four actors here. The woman playing Joan was a little quieter than necessary given how explosive the other three were, but all were quite evocative.

Less satisfying were the ecstatic dance numbers—it was the usual flail about and spin and change places stuff that every play seems to require these days, perhaps as part of zoning in an entertainment district. They could have been shorter, or plain ol' acting could have saved the day. We were in a pizzeria basement, after all. There's no seat more than four yards from an actor's face.

One other minor bit is the issue of virgin birth, which also seems to be universal when it comes to plays and films with a Catholic theme. But it comes late in the play, so doesn't overburden the relationships between the girls, which is where What Every Girl Should Know shines. So check it out.