Welcome to 'Planet Girl'

In a series of vignettes that range from the absurd to the absolutely insane, Greetings from Planet Girl at the Charlestown Working Theater is a delightful treat. Its offbeat humor and uncanny ability to agilely navigate between the taboo and the acceptable make it a uniquely entertaining experience. Greetings from Planet Girl presents a rare glimpse of what combining wit, femininity, and a touch of vulgarity can do for theater.

Planet Girl is a female theater troupe of six women, whose talents vary as much as the material of this production. Clever songwriting, quick punch lines, and dance combine as these entertainers provide a night full of unexpected laughs.

The play's title reveals little, save mystery, yielding a curious audience at the play's outset. As the play opens, lights reveal the Virgin Mary; she stands beside her sidekick Holy Girl, who is decked out in a royal blue bikini and white cape _they're here to save the day, and banish the world of all its sins, while exposing ample amounts of flesh in the process. In this comedic biblical portrayal of the Blessed Mother, saintly divinity is pleasantly human. "The widow of a carpenter has yet many splinters to pull," she proclaims casually while walking off the stage, as if to say her work here is not yet complete.

The show is hardly over, however, and the next vignette begins: A woman seated on a metal folding chair is poised to deliver news of her boyfriend's emergent taste for fetishism and the world of S&M. She is shocked and unbelievably repulsed by her beau's confessions. He's been wearing her stiletto heels and cleaning house with the lesbian neighbors. Worst of all he appears to hold few misgivings about his behavior.

Actress Cyndi Freeman fluidly plays both roles. Her transition from one character to another smoothly proceeds without flaw; her rendition of both husband and wife leave the audience rolling in laughter. "Ride me like a pony" the boyfriend calls, only to be met in the next instant by a character transition which finds us listening to the girlfriend reflecting on her never having had a pony, as a young girl. This hilarity proceeds until the scene ends.

Perhaps the most memorable of scenes is Clit and Snatch, a spoof of National Public Radio's Click and Clack, a show put on by two men who offer their listeners advice on auto repair. In Planet Girl's clever rendition of Click and Clack two women, Clit and Snatch divulge the secrets of self-pleasure.

As Greetings from Planet Girl draws to a close, a final musical number entitled the "Vagina Dentata" proclaims that women must rejoice in the power of their femininity. The program notes that "Vagina Dentata is a widespread, archetypal fear to be found in mythology, symbolism, and faiths worldwide. It is evocative of subconscious belief that a woman may devour or consume her partner during sex."

The women of Greetingsfrom Planet Girl line the stage in silk robes, belting out the power of being female, then quickly disrobing to reveal, in all of its splendor, exaggerated foam, female genitalia. At its close, those in the audience have been left with certain fullness, having indulged in a night of laughter, absurdity, and vulgarity.