YCP TheaterWorks will stage the quirky comedy-drama, The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife, November 7, 13 and 14 at 8 PM and Sunday Matinees on November 8 and 15 at 2 PM at the Van Cortlandtville School Theater on Route 6 in Mohegan Lake (directly across from the Cortlandt Town Shopping Center). Tickets for the show are $15, adults; $12 for seniors and students. For tickets and further information call (914) 528-4145. See our website at www.YCPTW.org.
The cast includes Susan Bond, playing Marjorie, the Allergist’s wife, Elise Godfrey plays her friend Lee. Marjorie’s mother is played by Blossom Birkenbach and her husband, the Allergist, Frank Gatto. The doorman is portrayed by Christopher Syrewicz. The play is under the direction of Marshall Moseley with Demos Eitzer as Stage Manager.
The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife might sound like a part of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, but that’s not quite so. An award winning hit at the Manhattan Theatre Club and on Broadway in 2000, The Tale of the Allergist's Wife written by Charles Busch is a radical departure for the well known author of extravagant spoofs like Vampire Lesbians of Sodom and Psycho Beach Party. Marjorie Taub, the wife of a philanthropic allergist, is engulfed in a life crisis of Medea like proportions. Her children are grown, her beloved therapist died recently and her mother, obsessed with bowel movements grates on her nerves. She tries to lose herself in a world of art galleries, foreign films and avant guard theater, but finds she is barely able to rouse herself from her sofa. Her spirits suddenly soar when a fascinating and incredibly worldly friend from her childhood appears on her doorstep. Lee the savior that infuses Marjorie with life becomes Lee the unwelcome and sinister guest in short order.
The play won the Outer Critics Circle John Gassner Award, and this praise from the N. Y. critics: “A window rattling comedy of mid life malaise.... Mr. Busch has swum straight into the mainstream.... The Tale of the Allergist's Wife earns its wall to wall laughs." N.Y. Times, "Charles Busch comes of age as a comic playwright of the first rank." N.Y. Daily News, "An intelligently funny and satirically relevant uptown comedy." N.Y. Magazine.
