A Pained Pause

YOUR HUMBLE REPORTER IN EDVARD MUNCH MODE, REACTING TO THE PROSPECT OF THE RETURN OF MENOPAUSE THE MUSICAL TO THE LONG WHARF MAINSTAGE THIS SUMMER.

For a body (like the Long Wharf Theatre) to grow and mature and challenge itself, there need to be adjustment periods which unfortunately may sometimes bring extraordinary discomfort, awkwardness, confusion and madness.

Hence, hours before they released their 2011-12 slate of shows (see previous post), the Long Wharf announced that it’s bringing back the crowdpleasing, critically reviled (by this critic, anyway) pop-song rewrite (don’t call it a musical), Menopause The Musical (whoops, they just did), July 12 through Aug. 7 on the theater’s mainstage. Menopause played two summers at the theater previously, in 2006 and 2007. It proved to be a hot flash, commercially speaking, whereas other (frankly better-quality) bookings like the first national tour of Altar Boyz proved to be flashes in pans.

Other Long Wharf summer shows will soon be announced. The theater is also once again hosting one of the theater events for the International Festival of Arts & Ideas—Jack Hitt’s one-man show Making Up the Truth, June 21-24 at Long Wharf Stage II.