Theatre Review : ‘The Secretaries’ a Deft, Merciless Satire

Type a memo, file a report, fetch the coffee, slice up a lumberjack with a chainsaw.

All in a day’s work for “The Secretaries,” those Slim-Fast-slurping, typing pool terrorists at a Big Bone, Ore., sawmill who vent their dead-end frustrations with deadly determination in this very black comedy that plays like a cross between Jean Genet and “Tales From the Crypt.”

The Five Lesbian Brothers, a New York-based gay activist troupe who collaboratively wrote and perform “The Secretaries,” render their satirical portraits with a deft but merciless eye for the toll office drudgery exacts on the feminine psyche.

In robotic unison, the secretaries tap their keyboards and celebrate the virtues of employment, punctuating their chants with word-processing commands.

Lisa Kron, Babs Davy and Maureen Angelos play the veteran clericals so steeped in office routine they’ve even synced up their menstrual cycles--the rapid-fire “tsk-tsk-tsk” of their malicious gossip is an inspired touch.

Reigning over the group both socially and professionally is the icy Miss Curtis (Peg Healy), a svelte power-monger with sinister designs on her newest employee, the very capable but innocent Patti (Dominique Dibbell).

Director Kate Stafford hasn’t pulled any punches in her staging, calibrated for maximum shock value. The visual assaults range from locker-room gross-out (Miss Curtis collecting soiled tampons for obscure “research”) to the eerily horrific (an affectionate kiss suddenly turning into bloody reprisal). The Grand Guignol ending in particular seems to have slithered out of some cesspool of feminist revenge fantasies.

But the subjugation of women depicted here goes way past the usual cliches of male domination--these women practice cruelty and humiliation even on one another.

The Brothers deliberately violate their own comic-book detachment often enough to keep us emotionally off balance--especially when we witness the painful, guilt-racked transformation of the sympathetic Patti into a killer, or the victimization of the single male character they’ve gone out of their way to establish as sensitive and decent (Angelos in a dual role).

The resulting ambivalence isn’t necessarily a bad thing--men might actually learn something here about the discomfort women experience in the presence of slasher films and other misogynist elements in popular culture.

The problem is the intermittent intrusion of a moral foundation that’s all too glibly repudiated the moment it becomes inconvenient. In the end, all we’re left with is a gleeful cautionary reminder that women can be every bit as homicidal as men.

Now there’s an encouraging thought.

* “The Secretaries,” Highways, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica, Thursdays-Saturdays at 8:30 p.m., Sundays at 7:30 p.m. Ends May 1. $12-$15. (213) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.