Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
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Essays
The Snow Day Matinee
Brendan Lemon
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Dec. 28, 2010
Based on the film byPedro Almodóvar
Book byJeffrey Lane
Music and Lyrics byDavid Yazbek
Directed byBartlett Sher
Book byJeffrey Lane
Music and Lyrics byDavid Yazbek
Directed byBartlett Sher
Lincoln Center Theater presented the world premiere of WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, a musical based on Pedro Almodóvar's classic film. LCT's Resident Director, Bartlett Sher, led the extraordinary collaborators Jeffrey Lane and David Yazbek, who took Almodóvar's tale and infused it with their own wry, comic style and an irresistible Spanish beat.
Both touching and hilarious, it's a story about women and the men who pursue them... finding them, losing them, needing them, and rejecting them. At the center is Pepa, whose friends and lovers are blazing a trail through 1980s Madrid. And why do they all keep showing up at her high-rise apartment? Gazpacho anyone?
Along with Pepa, there's her missing (possibly philandering) lover, Ivan; his ex-wife of questionable sanity, Lucia; their son Carlos; Pepa's friend, Candela, and her terrorist boyfriend; a power-suited lawyer plus a taxi driver who dispenses tissues, mints and advice in equal proportion. Mayhem and comic madness abound, balanced by the empathy and heart that are trademarks of Almodóvar's work. And of Bartlett Sher's too.
