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The Oldest Professions – Usher Nonsense Vol. 2 No. 2
The Oldest Profession, by Paula Vogel (a New York Premiere)
Directed by David Esbjornson, Sets – Narelle Sission, Lighting – James Vermeulen,
Costumes – Elizabeth Hope Clancy, Music Director – Bernard Corbett
Cast: Marylouise Burke (Wintertime), Carlin Glynn, Katherine Helmond, Priscilla
Lopez, Joyce Van Patten
Signature Theatre Company, 555 West 42nd Street Phone: (212) 244-7529)
This the season of Paula Vogel at Signature, but this is not such a hot way to begin. This is
not a great play. It’s not even a good play. And I wanted it to be because I like these actors,
number one, and I was very excited to see that all of them were over 50 years old. What a
concept. Hire older actors who know what they are doing. And women at that.
These actors do know what they are doing. But the story of old hookers who’s only place to
congregate is a bench on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in 1980 – well it sort of wanders
the street, as these women never did.
All of these hookers hail from New Orleans and are supposed to be in their 60’s. They spend
a lot of time reminiscing about the good old days, the good old gentlemen who came to call
on them, the good old madams who took care of the community, and the good old gin they
made in the tub. Between the good old days and the present, not much has happened.
Fortunately, we do get to see them in the good old days as, one by one, most of them drop
dead and go to a “better place”. This is wonderful stuff. These women preen, and entice,
and make you wish you were as old and as wise. They shimmy, and shine, and give
shameless a new face.
Unfortunately the story and the dialogue of their last days on the planet ($10 for 20 minutes,
visiting men in old age homes, and a communal bank account) begs belief and dissolves into
not so very interesting. At the very end of the play however, there is a vignette of the women
passed watching over their one chum left behind. There is a bond there that tugs at everyone
in the theatre, and for a moment you can see what Ms. Vogel was trying to do. Would that
she did it more and sooner, because this started out as an excellent idea.