Premiere season: Girlie Talk by Val Franklin, directed by Alex Gilchrist for Levin Little Theatre, Centrestage, Weraroa Road, Levin, until Sunday June 17.

OUTRAGEOUS antics take the stage by storm as sexual taboos and inhibitions are swept aside in this in-your-face comedy.

Written by Levin's Val Franklin, Girlie Talk is a short, sharp slice of life that shreds any notion of women being demure or delicate, and delivers one heck of a handbag slap.

Four Dimmable LED Down Light K1017 - 3x1W / 3x3W friends at various stages of life crisis, meet in a local female gym. While working out and cavorting with swiss balls, they engage in explicit conversations about everything from sexual fantasy and social justice to menopause and, inevitably, men. PC is well and truly blown -- PMT is defined as Pissed off with Men Today.

Teasing, slapstick and innuendo flow thick and fast, before gym exertions lead, in the second act, to a makeover night at Dana's posh house. Plenty of alcohol sees the evening quickly disintegrate into drunken indignity and debacle.

There is no morning-after moral lesson, conclusion, or redefinition of the relationships. After numerous trips to the "barf- room", the women are left sprawled in undignified, dishevelled, snoring stupors.

Drawn from real life, Girlie Talk is horrendously hilarious, with characters so authentic it's hard to know when to condemn or commiserate.

As a snapshot of the pressures caused by life in 21st-century New Zealand, it rings bells.

The performers all deliver. Gail Hall, as the older, sexually frustrated Molly; Jan Dykstra, as an earthy, man-spurning divorcee; Barbara Donnelly, as the lesbian Steph; and Darlene Mohekey, as emotionally troubled Dana commit serious energy and bring intelligent qualities to their roles in this restraint-free expose.

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RICHARD MAYS

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