Comedy brings to light common issues for women in ’60s, relates to current generation’s troubles
The writers from Comedy Central and Columbia’s Workshop Theatre bring to you a production featuring ... Tupperware?
The plastic containers that took America by storm in the 1960s are making a slightly different comeback in the community theater box office. After three weeks of sold-out performances, “Sealed for Freshness: A Tupperware Party Gone Awry” has been extended due to such a positive audience response.
Four quirky Midwestern housewives light up the stage as they gather to impress their new neighbor, who happens to be the most successful Tupperware seller in the region. The guest list: a pregnant woman her disapproving sister, a ditzy blonde and a romantically distressed hostess. What begins as a typical container party gets interesting when the girls decide to break an official Tupper rule by adding alcohol to the mix, each martini revealing inappropriate tendencies and underlying secrets.
Oppression of women was prevalent in the ’60s, and it’s no wonder they turned to deviled egg containers for comfort. “Sealed for Freshness” confronts the expectations to be a housewife and raise children conflicted with the longing to be out in the real world. It’s a throwback of sorts, a chance for audiences to reminisce or reflect upon these difficulties that still exist today.
Christina Whitehouse-Suggs, who plays Sinclair Benevente in the show, said, “All of us have experienced in recent days how women continue to be oppressed, and it is more covert but very present. All women will resonate with it.”
The key to Tupperware’s stardom: It’s a scandalous guilty pleasure. The humor balances on the fence between raunchy and crude, but that’s what makes it wildly entertaining. It’s the feeling of “Did that really just happen?” that causes the audience to become engrossed in this sketch comedy-like production. Sumner Bender, who plays Tracy Ann McClain, said, “The show is hilarious. I just don’t think we knew [how funny it was] until we got an audience in front of us, and they were howling and snorting with laughter. Even the men are loving it because it’s raunchy.”
This production makes it clear that no subject is off limits through the supply of sexual references and drinking ordeals. That being said, although your grandmother may love to reflect on her past, you may not want to sit next to her unless you are both very comfortable with multiple references to your lady parts.
Nonetheless, it’s an experience for all, as Bender added, “The older people get to look back and reminisce, and the young people get to laugh at us being idiots.”
So however you slice and dice this sourly sweet production, it’s sure to be a gourmet delight that should be “sealed for freshness.”
This production is now running at the Workshop Theatre in Columbia from Feb. 3 to 5 at 8 p.m.
