It’s 1958 when housewife Betty Miller (played by Hannah Thompson) decides she’s going to run a secret hair salon from her living room to save money for her husband’s college fund…while hiding it from said husband who she is also trying to have a baby with…while being inundated by her religious widowed mother’s sex advice and her pregnant-for-the-fifth-time sister’s advertisement theories.
This is Pouf! by Lou Clyde. Produced in New York City off-Broadway virtually in 2020 and in-person in 2021 by the She NYC New Play Festival, Pouf! has made it back to Columbia for three weekends.
Clyde has written a tight, bold script, one in which dialogue feels intentional, interactions between characters feel natural, and each joke lands right on the money. In fact, it is this humor that seals the play as overall successful, specifically the chances Clyde takes with it, inserting risqué sexual jokes with precision, like a discussion between daughter and mother about how to address ejaculation or what the mailman saw when he witnessed the mother in a compromising position.
Beneath all the humor is a play full of heart, rife with characters who truly care about each other, and Pouf! subtly makes the argument that what is defined as feminine (doing hair, cleaning the kitchen, discussing soap operas) is just worthy of discussion and capable of power. From one hair pouf, we see characters learning to love another again and characters learning to love themselves again. One feminine act positively transforms every character in the play.
Where the play falters is in this story driving the humor. It’s a magnificent idea, amplifying the 1950s woman’s strife in the home and challenging the perceived frivolity of feminine interests—and doing so in a comedy where most of the humor comes from explicit discussions of gender and sex. And yet, while so much of this undercurrent is about fighting for femininity, the characters, specifically the women, rarely ever discuss it, and it grows to feel like the audience is being teased, teetering on the edge of a conversation that never is realized.
While a good play should show not tell, and Pouf! certainly does, the looming presence of a direct reckoning felt like a Chekhov’s gun of sorts—it was on stage the entire time, gestured to often, but never fully used. The audience is given glimpses of this, like the mother, Teresa (played by Karen Herschell) telling Betty she’s proud of her, or the repeat client Margo (played by Tammy Smith) telling Betty of her newfound confidence, but while these brief moments affirm to the audience, and to Betty, that she’s doing a good thing, it doesn’t necessarily speak to the struggle that informs the play. The play successfully shows the power of a woman’s work but does not provide a moment of reckoning between the characters so affected by this work.
While some might not find this necessary in an already hilarious and heart-filled script, in a story where a religious widow is trying to decide if she can love again, a married woman feels she lost her identity after having kids, and a young housewife is having to fight for the right to work, it feels amiss to not have a moment where it is tackled head on. This is especially true since the play has a danger of falling into a catch-22, with Betty wanting to break her husband’s boundaries and work but, for a significant portion of the play, doing said work for her husband.
Thus, the script feels as if it is moving towards a conversation, specifically between Betty and John. The pair clearly love and care for each other, but struggle communicating with one another; John really doesn’t see Betty. Finally, in the show’s climax, John discovers the secret salon, and the discussion about Betty’s work is initiated, but an external surprise cuts their conversation off before it really begins, and the audience never gets to see the full of it. The surprise is hilarious and certainly ties into aspects of the play—it’s not that it doesn’t belong. But, because of this, when the play ends with a flash-forward to a year later, where it seems the problems with the family have been resolved and that Betty realizes the importance of working for her own pleasure, while it’s heartwarming and empowering, it doesn’t feel fully earned.
If there is one aspect in this play that doesn’t falter, it’s the production, which is a masterclass in collaboration. The lighting, set production, costuming, and sound design all flow together effortlessly. The cast is absolutely phenomenal in making the script their own, especially with facial expressions and comedic timing. And, whether actor or director (Jessica Francis Fichter) choice, the small acts initiated by the characters on stage while they aren’t talking are often the best, like the way John takes the time to slightly straighten a frame on the wall during the play’s chaotic climax.
In the end, this is a wonderful production with tight dialogue, wild humor, an incredible cast, and an interesting premise. Clyde’s material is fresh and impactful, and she isn’t willing to shy away from a great joke. My only wish is that Clyde took the same risks with subject matter that she was willing to take with humor. As I got up to leave, to use the language of Pouf!, I certainly felt plenty of pleasure, but I didn’t quite get all the way there.