Louise Roche’s new play Help! My Husband Has Gone Missing: My Daughter is getting Married & I Am Having Hot Flashes! was a delightful one woman show about women of a certain “vintage”. Barbara, the main character, is having a milestone birthday and walks everyone through the feelings she experienced as she celebrated (?) that birthday.
As Barbara talks about her birthday, she explains that her daughter is getting married soon and her husband is missing. Yet, she teases the audience with the fact that she actually knows where her husband is hiding. Barbara discusses the changes she is feeling as she grows older and some of the comments that she gets from some of her friends.
One of the highlights of the show is Barbara discussing Spanx. The entire audience roared as she talked about the hormonal struggles she was experiencing and trying to learn to live with while planning for the wedding. Barbara talked about often odd relationships between mothers and daughters and female friends.
After a brief intermission, Barbara comes back on stage to give the audience a little more insight into where her husband is located and how she is coping with the wedding plans without him. She has been through more than a few years of struggle and yet the character shows how she presses on.
In the end, Barbara shows her strength and ends the show with an uplifting message that everyone can use.
The show is a pleasant way to spend an evening with laughter and enjoying those simple changes that every woman goes through and every man in the same house has to navigate. It is an amazing amount of dialogue she has to remember for each section of the play but it is done seamlessly.
I recommend this for both women and men because it is a humorous insight into women of a certain age and vintage.