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THE PRESIDENT & HER MISTRESS
The President and Her Mistress by Jan Buttram, Abingdon Theatre Company's artistic director, is a hoot -- a feminist future fantasia.... In the year 2156, the President of the United World is a country singer named Beck Shine (played by Buttram). She proposes a referendum to free the 50,000 remaining men on earth, who are confined to a penal colony in Australia. The referendum is voted down several billion to eight, with two abstentions, both from Cabinet members: Peggy, Beck's mother (Sherry Skinker), who is also the attorney general, and Vice President Kit, Beck's tough-talking Latina lover (Susanna Guzmán). Muckraking TV journalist Candy Powers, played with supercilious aplomb by Constance Boardman, opposes the president. Each time we see Powers, she's wearing a more outlandish wig. The wacky space-age costumes by Polly J. Byers delight the eye, as does James F. Wolk's set, consisting of Beck's pink and fluffy "oval waiting room," which is reminiscent of Barbie's dream house. When Beck's husband, Paul Porter Shine (Danton Stone), who is one of the few free men in society and also the surgeon general, convinces Beck to have something called a nanoprobe injection, all heck breaks loose inside her. The probes are sentient microscopic beings; their progress in her body affects Beck's thinking and moves her limbs (think All of Me on cold medication). The probes are represented by two silver-jumpsuited charmers, ZooZoo and Poochy. Jeremy Beck is the power-hungry -- and, not coincidentally, male -- ZooZoo, and Lori Gardner is the irresistibly impish Poochy, whose bizarre bleeps and gurgles run off with the show... Buttram's twangy world leader appeals, and her zany fable, as energetically directed by Rob Urbinati, offers offbeat amusement -- including a catchy though uncredited country song. Gwen Orel, Backstage Magazine
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