"Hurricane Diane" Is A Category One

Calling all suburban housewives! Eliminate that cul-de-sac, that lawn, those curbs, those husbands, and replace the rose bushes with wild primeval plants and trees! Let bacchantes romp through neighborhoods! Only then will Planet Earth be saved from the scourge of middle class mores and materialism!

Such is the content of Madeleine George’s F-bomb laden, one act comedy now playing in the intimate White Theatre at The Old Globe through March 8.

Her star is Rami Margron as a sturdy, work-booted Dionysus returned to earth as Diane to save humanity from its planet-busting polluting ways. Diane’s targets for new landscaping and Sapphic bliss are four New Jersey housewives residing on the same cul-de-sac, two in less than joyous marriages, one recently abandoned by her husband, and one unmarried African American editor of HGTV magazine, the latter Diane’s symbol of suburban rot.

A quartet of skilled actresses works hard at this unlikely plot: Liz Wisan (funny and touching as the lone non lesbian); Jenn Harris in a hilarious, bravura turn (“We’re family!”); Jennifer Paredes (oddly reminiscent of the Manson family acolytes); and beautiful Opal Alladin as the HGTV editor, replendent in “Eileen Fisher cashmere.”

The underlying threat of an actual hurricane off the New Jersey coast (think Hurricane Sandy) haunts the scenes, which are played on Jo Winiarski’s clever kitchen set that stands for all four homes (“same floor plan”), and reminds us of the impending doom of climate change.

George needs to rethink her 90-minute story line, which would benefit from pruning. Not every character needs a monologue. The desire to hammer home her environmental destruction message leads to pedantic dialogue. Does she need a time-traveling Greek god (“We’re going full Greek!”) to make her case? Her four lead characters can make it sans help from the ancients. Does she need to reduce men to mere references as nuisances and bad guys, while the wives succumb to their inner bisexuality?

Our queries may be moot given the obvious enjoyment of a full house of senior citizens, all laughing fit to be tied. They arose to applaud the hard-working cast, which circled the grand finale moment—the descent from the ceiling of a huge lemon tree with sprawling roots while thunder and lightning crashed, and leaves and snow fell as Hurricane Diane made landfall.

Go see this one and form your own opinion.