By Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin
Jill Rolston dyed her hair blonde and stuck Nerf footballs into her bra to play a woman with breast implants in "The Waiting Room."
'Waiting Room' comic villains over the top
By John Berger
Special to the Star-BulletinTHOSE expecting this week's staging of "The Waiting Room" to be a politically correct rant on how male chauvinist definitions of beauty force women to mutilate themselves are in for a shock. Playwright Lisa Loomer isn't so simplistic. Loomer's protagonists are women whose bodies have been altered in possibly life-threatening ways, but she's addressing broader issues. The ultimate villains of her story are the special interest groups that collude in placing corporate profits ahead of affordable health care, preventive medicine and curing disease.
Several key scenes involve the scheming of a smarmy hospital administrator (Jason Natale). He is convincing a dimwit FDA official (Edward J. Dyer) that a promising Jamaican cancer treatment not be certified for use in the United States. Both men own stock in an American pharmaceutical company that is working on a cancer cure. The stock likely would drop in value if the alternative Jamaican treatment were available.
Their campaign against allowing American hospital testing of the foreign cure they justify as protecting the gullible American public from foreign charlatans. Let Americans continue to die until an American corporation can profit from saving them.
To paraphrase one of the other characters: "Forty-six thousand women died of breast cancer last year without a march on Washington or a single quilt." Loomer doesn't pull her punches.
Although her protagonists meet in the titular waiting room and end up in adjoining hospital beds, they come from different eras and cultures. Wanda (Jill Rolston) is a modern working-class American who got 44-D silicone breast implants for her 30th birthday and now has breast cancer.
Victoria (Maureen Freehill) is a 19th century Englishwoman who cheerfully accepts as natural the physical harm caused by the corset that creates her 18-inch waist. She accepts 19th century medical dogma about the evils of female sexuality almost as readily.
Forgiveness From Heaven (Lee Chen) is an opium-smoking 18th century Chinese woman with bound feet. She reigns as First Wife; her husband loves to fondle, kiss, smell and suck her nude feet. When he tells her he has bought an 11-year-old girl with big feet to be Fifth Wife she announces with sadistic glee that it's not too late to start binding the girl's feet.
Chen anchors one scene with a graphic account of the foot-binding process. A Chinese foot-sex scene with Blake T. Kushi as the husband is well played as an early comic break. She has other great scenes as well.
Natale and Dyer give over-the-top performances as comic villains. Shen Sugai is the voice of reason as a doctor who begins to question their platitudes.
Freehill is a major asset as the earnest Victoria; she also appears briefly as a femnazi type. Rolston does well in a stereotypical role. Stephanie Sanchez glowers through several two-dimensional supporting roles.
Playwright Loomer works in references to other health-care issues ranging from alleged FDA cover-ups to cosmetic procedures, such as liposuction. The oddest moment in the play comes with the brief appearance of two characters identified as "German Barber Surgeons." Their significance is never explained.
The Waiting Room
Earle Ernst Lab Theatre, UH-ManoaShow times: 8 p.m. today through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.
