After watching 1979’s Rock ’n’ Roll High School, I wanted to be in a punk band. How hard could it be? In late elementary school, my friends and I formed a group called RAF. We had a drum set—a Tupperware container of bottle tops—and some stellar lyrics about nuclear bombs. Watching this revival of the long-running ’80s musical, created by A.M. Collins and Chad Henry (see our recent interview), I experienced an intense wave of ’80s nostalgia. Whatever the show’s original punk-feminist spirit, today it provides simple and almost wholesome entertainment, like riding the Duck.
Widowed Carol (Ann Cornelius), divorced music teacher Bev (Heather Hawkins), unhappily married Jetta (Chelsea LeValley), and single bridge operator Wendi (Janet McWilliams) decide that forming a band will be more profitable than hawking pyramid-scheme cosmetics. (Thirty years later that’s probably still true.) From there we witness how adapting punk personas creates both empowerment (for them) and disapproval (from their men). Ably directed by Shawn Belyea, the entire cast provides potent performances—including the signature tune “Eat Your Fucking Cornflakes.” A keenly comic moment ensues when Carol’s son Tim (Trent Moury), a punk himself, confronts these covert middle-aged rockers. Mom! You’re embarrassing me!
Though billed as a punk-rock musical, Angry Housewives features a mostly traditional score, plus some choreography (by Troy Wageman) that wouldn’t look out of place on Broadway during the ’30s. Dennis Culpepper’s set is strewn with handbills that evoke the pre-Internet era of band promotion, augmented by videos from Brianna Larson and Brody David. Yet K.D. Schill’s lazy costume design hits the wrong end of the ’80s: The large hair bows and oversized jean jackets are post-Madonna, while Collins’ original conceit sprang from the Patti Smith era. Spiky-haired Tim sports a Ramones T-shirt while carrying a Nike backpack. Nothing says counterculture like a corporate sports logo.
Yet Angry Housewives has its nostalgic pleasures, including its heroines’ determination to “make vinyl.” Somehow mp3s and Instagram just aren’t as punk.
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ANGRY HOUSEWIVES ArtsWest, 4711 California Ave. S.W., 938-0339, artswest.org. $17–$36.50. 7:30 p.m. Wed.–Sat., 3 p.m. Sun. Ends May 31.
