Preferred by Discreet Women Everywhere makes the most of its unique setting

Photo by Scott Pakudaitis

Freshwater Theatre’s Ruth Virkus takes us to a place that half of the potential audience has almost no knowledge of, while the other half know it intimately: the public women’s bathroom.

Preferred by Discreet Women Everywhere joins together three discreet short plays into a single evening, all set within the confines of a restroom at a somewhat swank Minneapolis joint – to explore the relationships women have among each other. The men in their lives are only spoken of, never seen. (It’s safe to say that these plays pass the Bechdel Test.)

The title play centers on a rather sudsy plot, as two old high-school friends meet for the first time in years. Mary, a local TV celebrity, is hiding not just from a blind date, but also from a man she had a quick affair with just weeks previously. The man, it turns out, is her old friend’s, Lauren’s, husband.

While some of the plot turns on the usual delight of trying to hide a terrible secret no matter what, the real meat of the play comes from the interplay between Mary and Lauren and where their lives have gone since school. Beyond the superficial success – Mary’s career, Lauren’s family – lies a bevy of anxiety centered on whether or not the choices they have made are the right ones.

In the brief “Lucy and the Calamity of Jane,” the two characters are soon to be step-mother and step-daughter. Lucy, the teenage step-daughter, is afraid that the marriage will ruin the relationship she has forged with Jane, and that her father’s string of failed marriages will claim Jane as well. Jane, for her part, works to convince Lucy that the changes will be for the better, even as she is aware of the pitfalls that lie ahead.

Finally, “10:00, Bistro Caprice” finds middle-aged Lydia in a pickle. She arrives in a panic, with red wine staining her $400 silk blouse. In moments, she has doused the whole thing in water, but then realizes she has stripped to her bra, and has nothing to cover it to make her escape out of the restaurant.

What follows, and what makes this the most affecting of trio of plays, is Lydia coming to grips with issues of middle-aged sexuality, body image, and being able to define herself outside of a relationship (we have another divorcee here). The script, along with Mame Pelletier’s performance, moves Lydia through quite a journey in a short amount of time, leading to her final, triumphant and even moving walk out of the bathroom.

The performances are solid throughout and give a lot of life to Virkus’ already meaty scripts, as does the strong directing work of Nicole Wilder. It's a sometimes wild, sometimes funny, and often insightful ride.

For tickets, visit online. The play runs through Oct. 28