Audience members filing into Red Barn Theatre over the next four weeks will be treated to a gender-playful, reality-bending comedy. “Hurricane Diane” follows a female incarnation of the Greek god Dionysus, who has come to Earth in contemporary times to gather a cult of followers with the intent of reshaping the future of the planet.
A setup like that could play bleak or overly academic, but instead runs full-on comedy, as the title character decides the most efficient way to recruit devotees is to seduce a group of New Jersey housewives. Poised as a butch permaculture expert, Diane sets to work gathering suburban landscape design contracts, and hopefully, the bored women who sign them. The 90- minute play is a new work, penned by Madeleine George, a fresh voice in American theater. “Hurricane Diane” premiered off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop in 2019, winning the Obie Award for Playwriting the same year.
Dionysus was the Greek mythological equivalent of Bacchus, a god of wine and ecstasy, vegetation and fertility. A male god, he bent the rules of gender having been born from a man and raised, in some interpretations, as a woman. Basically Dionysus was the representative of all things sexy in ancient Greece. “Hurricane Diane” brings back this sensual deity in the form of Diane, the irresistible lesbian from Vermont. The first pool of light, expertly placed by Jack MacDonald, introduces Erin McKenna in the title role. Playing somewhat against type, McKenna locks into the audience with swagger and charisma. She is in control, telling the audience she knows that the soon-to-be-introduced housewives don’t stand a chance. After all, she’s got thousands of years of seduction on her side. McKenna continues to hold her dynamic ground for the full play, conveying volumes in just a lean, or a knowing eyebrow raise.
Once Diane sets the stage, her suburban targets are introduced. Carol, played with perfectly simmering neuroses by Caroline Taylor, is the essential antagonist. A mid-level corporate player, Carol wants a lawn that will be aspirational to her neighbors. This is not a woman interested in permaculture, or flirtation for that matter. Taylor’s frantic pushback against McKenna’s slow and sultry advances gives the play a perfect push-pull.
The rest of the cul-de-sac coffee klatch participants are played by three of Key West’s finest female leads. (You already met the other two.) Susannah Wells plays Renee, a top editor at HGTV, who secretly yearns to relive her lesbian glory days. Wells delivers a power boss persona who leans into whatever it is this new “permaculture expert” may be selling. Jessica Miano Kruel’s Pam brings the leopard print, the right stance and a killer accent, to the group. It might not be Jersey without Kruel’s version of the ultimate Italian Jersey housewife. She’s got Sopranos swagger, but her desire for an Italian garden to make up for the fact she’s never been able to visit the country in person tells the audience she secretly longs for something … more. Lauren Thompson rounds out the group as Beth, a woman recovering from the dissolution of her marriage. Thompson could allow the role to devolve into self-pity or caricature, but doesn’t. She carries the character through grief and uncertainty with humor and confidence.
Overall, the play rolls along at a brisk clip. The scenes quickly fade into one another and the laughs come easily. The five actors hold court and hold character, playing off one another with expert timing and fluidity. Director Joy Hawkins manages her talent with expertise, reining them in where appropriate to the script and letting them run wild when the time calls for it. The sexuality in the piece feels a bit blunted, and one could make the argument that things could move just a bit beyond the point of chaste. After all, we’re looking at a lesbian god of ecstasy and four steamy, bored housewives here. The themes of the script are apparent, but not overbearing. It’s one of those great new short plays that will meet an audience member where they enter. Here for environmental and social commentary? Gotcha covered. Prefer instead to turn off your brain for an hour and half and enjoy five funny females? Not a problem.
When the show opened three years ago, The New York Times appropriately referred to the play as an amalgam of “ancient myth, lesbian pulp, ecological thriller and Real Housewives.” Who knew that four such disparate genres could make for great theater? Well, Madeleine George for starters, and now Hawkins. In bringing the play to Key West, The Red Barn Theatre continues a commitment to finding new gems and staging them for a more intimate community. It’s a move that’s paying off, positioning the intimate space as a geographically (but not tonally) distanced Off-Broadway experience for locals and visitors.
