"Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" trips over bawdy shenanigans

Theater Review |

Maybe you thought "Menopause the Musical" had the corner on addressing, ahem, intimate concerns of women in a theater piece.

If so, you have yet to see "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues," Book-It Repertory Theatre's new treatment of the storied Tom Robbins novel.

Where to begin?

Probably with what TV ads used to call "feminine hygiene." There is a lot of whoopin' and hollerin' about that in Book-It's "Cowgirls."

But, then again, there's a lot of other stuff going on in this show that would make "Menopause the Musical" look like an episode of "Sesame Street."

Undeterred by Gus Van Sant's earnest but failed attempt to capture the essence of Robbins' 1970s book on-screen, Book-It adapter Jennifer Sue Johnson and director Russ Banham have dragged it, kicking and screaming, to the stage.

And if there was any doubt that "Cowgirls" is a nonlinear, language-driven literary fantasia not meant to be taken literally, this sprawling, bawdy mess of a show dispels it.

It is not just that the exertions of orgiastic sex (gay and straight) tend to be more embarrassing than exciting when faked by live actors. Or that equating natural odors with women's liberation seems reductive these days.

The larger issue is the unmet necessity of framing the 400-plus pages odyssey of giant-thumbed hitchhiker queen Sissy Hanksaw (played here by Kate Czajkowski) in mythic, larger-than-life terms — while indicating the social context it sprang from.

Jennifer Zeyl's setting of an iconic auto shop/truck stop — with an old ice machine, trophy hubcaps mounted on the wall, and rusty double doors — sets the mood promisingly.

So does the music (mostly slivers of '60s and '70s pop tunes) provided by two genuine twangsters: the superb Nashville fiddler Barbara Lamb and Seattle's own hard-strummin' cowgal, the great Jo Miller (who also narrates the show).

What doesn't fly is the acting-out of Johnson's script, which attempts to conflate Sissy's adventures into a coherent plot.

We see bits of Sissy's misfit Virginia youth; her unfulfilled married life with asthmatic aesthete Julian (Chris Maslen); her mentoring by swishy, hygiene-spray mogul The Countess (Brian Thompson).

But the emphasis is on Sissy's ecstatic sexual-political awakening in a tribe of rowdy spa ranch hands led by Bonanza Jellybean (Hilary Pickles).

This posse of lustful female rebels is closer to R. Crumb's cartoon fantasies of dominant earth goddesses, than, say, novelist Rita Mae Brown's feminist visions.

The show also has its own Mr. Natural, in the form of Robbins' lascivious semi-guru The Chink — zestily played by Wesley Rice. And Rice alone emits the surreal twinkle of self-parody embedded in Robbins' phantasmagorical riffing.

Book-It has rounded up an attractive, lively group to play the ranch gals — which means, mostly, a lot of romping, leering and shouting out of lines.

Wishing for subtlety here may be as absurd as seeking out calm at a rodeo. But there must be some way to express all that cowgirl esprit de corps without bludgeoning you with it.

Julie Jamieson has some funny moments as the tartest, grungiest ranch hand, as does Samara Lerman, as the resident new-ager. And when given the chance, Pickles nicely alternates take-charge brio with wistful vulnerability, as Jellybean woos Czajkowski's sweet, perpetually innocent Sissy.

But when the actors spout such maxims as: "The beauty of simplicity is the complexity it attracts," and "A lot of life boils down to whether a girl can live out her fantasies," it's eye-rolling time. And after the mild shock wears off, the eye-rolls continue during all that fake canoodling.

If you enjoyed reading Robbins' book, maybe you'll want to leave it at that. Because in any form, one thing "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" should never do, is give you a case of the blues.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com