When New York-based lesbian playwright Madeleine George found out that the old Pratt Museum of Natural History was going to be closed down in her hometown of Amherst, Mass., she wanted to go back so she could chain herself to the door to stop it from happening. And that was despite her opinion that "it was a terrible museum and it was really outdated."
"It was a museum that I had loved a lot as a child," said George, citing the Pratt closure as one of the inspirations for her 2011 comedy Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, which is having its Midwest debut in Chicago at Theater Wit. "[The museum] felt ancient itself and it was always very under-visited. You could go in there and get lost and feel like you were stepping out of time."
But a musty museum isn't the only focus of George's play, even though its closure does create some conflict for the characters and some whimsical comic asides as two prehistoric diorama Neanderthals share conversations that mirror those of bored college students encountering decades-old exhibits.
George says the heart of Seven Homeless Mammoths… is an examination of jealousy involving a lesbian love triangle among college academics in a small New England town. Dean Wreen ( Meighan Gerachis ) has invited her ex-lover, Greer ( Laura T. Fisher ), back into their former home together since she has been diagnosed with a terminal cancer. But also living there is Wreen's much-younger lover, Andromeda ( Kristen Magee ).
"How do you deal with being the new person coming in to a relationship where there's an ex-partner who has been around for a really long time?" said George. "Not to generalize, but I feel that lesbian configurations of that problem are different from other kinds. There's a particular way that women stay in each other's lives. Not everybody, obviously, but it's pretty common to find that people have created really interesting 'alternative kinship structures' as one of the characters says in the play."
Although George is more than happy to see all the advances being made in the United States regarding same-sex marriage rights and is very willing to endorse them, she questions if something might be lost with all the emphasis on traditional two-person partnerships taking precedence over more creative and expansive family relationships created within the LGBT community.
"The more innovative structures that we have been able to make in the past, not having access to the traditional or mainstream forms, do those things fall by the wayside?" George asked. "That's a kind of question that runs throughout the play."
But despite the dramatic issues of mortality and jealousy, George insists that she also wrote Seven Homeless Mammoths to explore the similarities and differences of comedies as written by Shakespeare and those of modern-day sitcoms. In fact, George found a way to weave in her obsession with the hit NBC sitcom Friends throughout the play.
"I don't know exactly what I love so much about that show, but I think it's a little because it verges on the perfect sitcom," George said. "I have watched all the episodes many, many times and I own them all."
All these disparate comic elements of a natural history museum, jealous academic lesbians and Friends sitcom references really spoke out to Theater Wit artistic director Jeremy Wechsler, who feels that Seven Homeless Mammoths… is a perfect compliment to his company's hit production of Completeness from last year.
"I'm a whore for a comedy," joked Wechsler, adding that he sought out to direct and produce Seven Homeless Mammoths… initially just because its wacky title jumped out at him. "Ultimately I picked the play because its characterization is spot on, and it is freaking funny."
Another thing that impressed Wechsler, who joked that he was the "straight man out" when he previously worked for the very gay-focused Bailiwick Repertory Theatre, was that Seven Homeless Mammoths… featured lesbian characters who weren't dealing with societal disapproval or discrimination, but who were just leading their everyday lives.
"The assumptions in the play are all about the inclusiveness of gay culture into American culture," Wechsler said. "It's also about loss and how you let go of things in the past, and it's quite touching."
Though Seven Homeless Mammoths… is largely about a lesbian, George was happy to report that her comedy largely won over an overwhelmingly suburban heterosexual audience at its 2011 premiere at New Jersey's Two River Theater Company.
"This is a beautiful thing for comedy, which is to bridge the gap," George said. "To have some people in the audience to say, 'This is my story and I don't get to see it enough,' and to have other people in the audience to go like, 'There's no reason why I can't participate in this story, too.'"
Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England runs Thursday, March 6, through Sunday, April 27, at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave. Previews go through Sunday, March 16, with an official press opening at 7 p.m. Monday, March 17. The regular run is 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays with 3 p.m. matinees Sundays. Preview tickets are $12-$28. Regular run tickets are $20-$36; call 773-975-8150 or visit www.theaterwit.org .
