arts & entertainment

In Their Closets

Two Muses Theatre Company stages
Love, Loss and What I Wore.

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Suzanne Chessler

Contributing Writer

T

wo Muses Theatre is making sure
that women are not neglected over
Father's Day weekend and the two
weekends before the holiday.
That's the timeframe for their production
of Love, Loss and What I Wore, a series of
monologues and scenes that call attention
— laughingly and poignantly — to emotions
and experiences associated with items of
feminine clothing.
The theater piece, with a different cast
every weekend, offers a script by Delia and
the late Nora Ephron, sisters who shared
writing responsibilities for You've Got Mail
and Bewitched in addition to other memo-
rable films.
The piece is based on the book of the same
name by Ilene Beckerman.
"I like Love, Loss and What I Wore because
it's funny, touching and so universal" says
Diane Hill, director and theater co-founder
with Barbie Amann Weisserman. "We
all have stories about articles of clothing
that have stuck with us for some reason or
another.
"For me, it was those white go-go boots
that I wanted so desperately. Recalling that
makes me feel like a kid again, and it helps
me to remember that even though I didn't
get those boots, I managed to live without
them"
Two Muses, as part of this produc-
tion, is partnering with Closet NV in West
Bloomfield to raise clothing donations for

Dress for Success, a worldwide organization
that promotes the economic independence of
women by providing professional attire.
"I decided to do three separate casts
because there are so many talented women
in this area" explains Hill as Two Muses ends
its third season. "I wanted to get as many
new women on stage as possible"
Among those appearing on the stage
at Barnes and Noble Booksellers in West
Bloomfield are four Jewish actresses: Yolanda
Fleischer (May 30-June 1), Lila Lazarus (June
6-8), and Julie Yolles with Rae McIntosh
(June 13-15).
Each actress relates to items described in
the production and can tell about special
items that have been part of her own ward-
robe.
"I saw this show at the Gem [Theatre in
Detroit] and directed it in a production for
the National Council of Jewish Women," says
Fleischer, long active in the Metro Detroit
theater community as performer and teach-
er. "Every woman who sees this play will
have her memory jogged, and every man
who sees it will have a better understanding
of women"
While Fleischer has a shared outlook
with the character who describes hating her
purse, she and her sister have shared regrets
not knowing what their mother did with
their prom dresses.
Fleischer, still able to envision the pale
green strapless with a hoop skirt, took charge
of her wedding dress, a white mini chosen
for a small gathering at Temple Israel.
"The Ephron sisters have brought up a
variety of stories" Fleischer says of the show

Nate Bloom

Special to the Jewish News

At The Movies
Adam Sandler, now 47, has made two

charming films with Drew Barrymore:
The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates.
The pair has chemistry. So here's hop-
ing that Blended, opening Friday, May
23, doesn't end this streak.
Sandler and Barrymore play single
parents who go on a bad blind date,
but by coincidence later end up shar-
ing a suite at an African safari resort
for families for a week.
By the way, Barrymore, 39, and
her husband, art consultant Will
Kopelman, 36, who wed in a Jewish
ceremony in 2012, had their second
child, Frances Barrymore Kopelman,
last month. Their daughter Olive was

120

May 22 • 2014

JN

Yolanda Fleischer
(May 30-June 1)

born in September 2012.
Palo Alto, a portrait of adolescent
lust, boredom and self-destruction,
also is scheduled to open on May 23.
The teen movie is the debut feature
from writer/director Gia Coppola. It is
based on the book Palo Alto: Stories,
written by actor James Franco, and
features new music from Devonte
Hynes (aka Blood Orange). The film
co-stars Franco, Emma Roberts,
Jack Kilmer, Zoe Levin (The Way
Way Back) and Nat Wolff (The Naked

Brothers Band).
Jon Favreau, 47, became a major

Hollywood player as the director of
the first two Iron Man movies.
Their success has allowed him to
make/direct a little, personal film
called Chef, scheduled to open on
May 23. He stars as a Cuban chef

Lila Lazarus
(June 6-8)

Julie Yolles
(June 13-15)

that won the 2010 Drama Desk Award for
Unique Theatre Experience and has been
seen in many countries.
Lila Lazarus, a TV personality who thinks
of her career as representing theater of fact,
finds laughs in the lines about piercing. Her
mother, actress and director Evelyn Orbach,
dramatically objected to her daughter
undergoing something similar to what is
described.
"Love, Loss and What I Wore talks to all
of us," Lazarus says. "I'm not a pack rat, but
I hold on to parts of my wardrobe because
they make me feel as if I'm holding on to
history"
Lazarus, who was at the center of a broad-
cast series granting wishes to people in
unhappy circumstances, recalls going on a
balloon ride with a young woman. The bal-
loon came down by accident on the property
of an elderly man who happened to be knit-
ting at the time and later made a poncho for
Lazarus.
"I call it Morris' poncho" she says. "It has a
lot of meaning, and that beats anything with
a designer label:'
Julie Yolles, fashion writer and social scene
columnist, believes that Jewish members
of the audience will recognize the Jewish
mother nudging her daughter.
A Jewish mother herself, now preparing
for the bat mitzvah of her own daughter,
Yolles holds on to the purple leopard pantsuit
she wore for her girl's baby-naming cer-
emony.
"This show is very endearing and relat-
able" says Yolles, a Two Muses board mem-
ber who has appeared on many local stages,

from Miami, who fails to make a suc-
cess of a Los Angeles restaurant.
After it closes, he buys a food truck
in Miami, reconnects with his ex-wife
(Sophia Vergara) and enlists friends
and family as his drives the truck
across the country back to L.A.
Several of Favreau's buddies
appear in smallish parts, including
Scarlett Johansson, 29, and Dustin
Hoffman, 76.
Like Iron Man, the Marvel comic
series X-Men has become a mega-
profitable movie franchise. X-Men:
Days of Future Past, also opening
May 23, is the seventh X-Man film
since the series began in 2000.
It is billed as the ultimate X-Men
ensemble in that the characters from
the first movies join those from later
flicks. One constant is Hugh Jackman

Rae McIntosh
(June 13-15)

most recently in a female version of The Odd
Couple.
"There's the comedy of a girl getting her
first bra, and there's the poignancy of a breast
cancer survivor and her clothing. There's
something for everyone in the audience"
McIntosh, whose grandparents were
charter members of West Bloomfield's
Congregation B'nai Moshe, has three mono-
logues.
One recalls a favorite dress given to a
girl by her mother and given away by her
stepmother. A second has to do with prom
dresses, and a third spotlights a woman
choosing between shoes that are comfortable
and shoes that are uncomfortable but stylish.
"I'm fashion-conscious, and I used to be
fat" says McIntosh, retired from being an
office-accounts manager and pursuing act-
ing interests through community stages and
California films.
"The clothes that give me the most plea-
sure are in styles that I couldn't wear before,
such as halter tops and leggings.
"Clothes are about what we can experi-
ence, and this production about clothes has
so many universal experiences"

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Love, Loss and What I Wore will
be staged at 8 p.m. Fridays and
Saturdays, and at 2 p.m. Sundays,
May 30-June 15, at Barnes & Noble
Booksellers, 6800 Orchard Lake
Road, in West Bloomfield. $17-$23.
(248) 850-9919;
www.twomusestheatre.org .

as Logan/Wolverine.
The script is co-written by Simon
Kinberg, 40. Bryan Singer, 48,
directs.

TV Notes

At 9 p.m. Sunday, May 25, HBO will
debut a new film version of The
Normal Heart, the 1985 Tony Award-
winning, largely autobiographical play
by Larry Kramer, now 78.
The main character is Ned Weeks,
a Jewish writer who struggles during
the early days of the AIDS crisis to
put together an organization that will
combat the indifference of the gov-
ernment and even some gay leaders
to the growing HIV/AIDS crisis.
Mark Ruffalo plays Weeks, with
Julia Roberts, Jim Parsons and Matt
Bomer playing other main roles.

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