Forget the moon-June-spoon stuff. Musicals can be about any topic, right? Presidential assassins, sports fans, nuns ...

Yet even we jaded theater critics are jarred now and again by the subjects song-and-dance entertainments address.

Consider, for instance, "Menopause the Musical."

One of a couple of offbeat tuners ushering in Seattle's fall theater season, "Menopause, the Musical" is true to its title.

The show has a cast of four women — at ACT Theatre, singer-actors Jayne Muirhead, Cynthia Jones, Laura Lee O'Connell and Juliet Hicks — belting out toe-tapping songs about the discomforts and dilemmas of midlife female biology.

Yes, we do mean songs dealing with hot flashes, with estrogen loss (and replacement), with night sweats, with memory flubs. And these gal-talk ditties are set to golden-oldie pop melodies most baby boomers can hum right along with — as in, "Puff, My God, I'm Draggin'," to the tune of "Puff, the Magic Dragon."

Does that sound like sheer torture to you? Or like big fun?

Theater previews

"Menopause the Musical" opens Thursday and plays through Sept. 30 at ACT Theatre, 700 Union St., Seattle; $45 (206-292-7676 or www.acttheatre.org)

"The Last Five Years" plays tonight through Oct. 2 at East Hall

Theatre, Seattle; $9-$18 (206-364-3283 or www.reacttheatre.org)

It turns out a lot of people think it's the latter. First mounted in 2001 by novice playwright Jeannie Linder at a makeshift theater in Orlando, Fla., this is one of those small-scaled, multi-city stealth hits (including ACT's "Late Night Catechism") which exerts instant title-appeal and prospers on word-of-mouth support.

"Menopause the Musical" has not only been running Off- Broadway for three years, it has also logged extended runs in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and other cities. And according to co-producer Kathi Glist, "We're reaching many people who have never been to live theater before."

Critical reaction hasn't always been steamy: a Chicago scribe found it full of "dull, borderline offensive song parodies," and a New York Times reviewer judged it funny at times, and at other times "painfully awkward."

But like "The Vagina Monologues" (a more serious-minded, nonmusical theater piece about female anatomy, which has enjoyed nationwide popularity), the lighthearted "Menopause the Musical" seems to chug along on a momentum of its own, becoming a theatrical cash cow in various locales regardless of critical reception.

"Particularly for women who are in the deepest, darkest throes of their reproductive life, it's very empowering, even transformational," contends Glist. She insists many men like it too, "even when they've been dragged to it" by their mates.

"The Last Five Years"

Less surprising, but unorthodox in its own way, is the emphatically pre-menopausal Jason Robert Brown show "The Last Five Years," which will open its first Seattle run this week under the aegis of the ReAct Theatre company.

Composed and written by Brown (a Tony Award-winner for his "Parade" score), this autobiographical song-cycle faced a lawsuit upon its debut in Chicago, in 2001. It seems Brown's former wife was not altogether pleased with her ex's too-close-for-comfort depiction of their courtship, marriage and divorce.

After major revisions were made in accordance with a resulting legal settlement, "The Last Five Years" played Off- Broadway, to applause for its eclectic score and unusual format.

The show presents a romance and its dissolution from the two points of view of the involved parties (the young aspiring actress Cathy and the novelist Jamie) and in two time-frames (chronologically and in flashback).

ReAct's production is being staged on Capitol Hill by company artistic director David Hsieh. And it is being performed, alternately, by three two-member casts, which should change the hormonal chemistry from night to night.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com