Revived ‘Brain Death’ Could Benefit From Fresh Blood

The revival of “Six Women With Brain Death or Expiring Minds Want to Know” at the San Diego Repertory Theatre has some impossible competition: the memory of its 1987 West Coast premiere at the same theater.

The show’s first outing was phenomenal, all the more remarkable for being so unexpected. It was the heyday of the Reagan era when everything was booming, but there was something naggingly wrong beneath the ever-smiling Teflon surface--as the bust of the 1990s would soon prove.

“Brain Death” punctured the pretensions of the ‘80s with humor and music, despair and fun as six talented ensemble actresses assessed tabloid promises (“Eat All Day, Lose Weight”) and the barrage of contradictory self-help books, sang a “Too Fat to Be Prom Queen” lament and offered their Nancy Reagan-style take on poverty: Just Say No.

The little show with eight scriptwriters played just two months shy of two years here. Its closing in 1989 was mourned by patrons who had returned to see it again and again--70 times in the case of one fan.

Well, the good news is that many of the skits still work, particularly the Barbie and Ken number in which the women interweave tales of their first relationships with memories of play-acting with Barbie and Ken dolls. The scene culminates in a doll marriage, for which half the women play men swaggering in exaggerated male style.

The show, which retains four of its talented original San Diego cast members, still seems to have the power to captivate; advance sales have already extended the run through April 28. But to one who has been there, done that, some of the material does seem a bit worn.

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Why have a homeless woman ask to borrow Nancy Reagan’s infamous china when the former first lady has been out of the White House for eight years? That implies there aren’t any new targets--hard to believe when it seems that more people are slipping from middle class to working poor and from working poor to homeless every day.

And though a skit on a soap opera addict who has an argument with an actress rising up from her television set is still very funny, it makes you wonder about the omission of Court TV, which has provided America with its most compelling soap operas of the intervening years: first the Menendez brothers trial and then O.J. Simpson.

“Brain Death” is at its best when it’s out there on the edge taking chances, as when the women challenge the preponderance of men in the antiabortion movement, questioning the right of those who have never carried a child to be deciding whether women should bear one or not.

To be fair, one of the problems in updating the material lies in the show’s personal tragedy, the death last year of its talented composer and lyricist, Mark Houston, of AIDS complications. Houston, who developed the show with its original Kansas City, Mo., performers (not the San Diego actresses) based on their own pet peeves and reminiscences and the absurdity of tabloid headlines, would no doubt have reveled in fresh material based on today’s news flashes.

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Someone needs to step in and move “Brain Death” firmly into the ‘90s. Otherwise, the musical revue is doomed to show its age, as almost any topical script does.

In the meantime, though, fine performances continue to charm, with Susan Mosher a standout among veteran funny women Melinda Gilb, Kate Kiley, Linda Libby and Sharon Murray. Newcomer Vanessa Townsell-Crisp, so good previously in the Rep’s “Turbo Tanzi,” doesn’t embrace the zaniness of the material, but her ease may grow with the run.

Many performances shine even amid the lackluster scene design by Victoria Petrovich, which misses the humor of Rob Murphy’s original concept of a cartoonish, giant exploded head. Cheryl Lindley’s costumes, too, are lacking; they lend no ensemble feel to the production and add no dimension to the script.

Even the musical delivery seems less sure than it did in the original San Diego run.

There’s talk of sending the show off-Broadway. That’s hard to imagine without a lot more work, but Houston’s talent and the topics explored here definitely deserve wider exposure.

* “Six Women With Brain Death or Expiring Minds Want to Know,” Lyceum Space, 79 Horton Plaza, San Diego. Today at 6 and 9 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. After Sunday, Wednesday-Friday 8 p.m., Saturday 5 and 8:30 p.m. and Sunday 3 p.m. Ends April 28. $22-$27. (619) 235-8025. Running time: 2 hours, 6 minutes.

Melinda Gilb

Kate Kiley

Linda Libby

Susan Mosher

Sharon Murray

Vanessa Townsell-Crisp

A San Diego Repertory Theatre production of a musical written by Cheryl Benge, Christy Brandt, Rosanna E. Coppedge, Valerie Fagan, Ross Freese, Mark Houston, Sandee Johnson and Peggy Pharr Wilson with music and lyrics by Mark Houston. Directed by Sam Woodhouse. Musical direction: William Doyle. Choreography: Steve Anthony. Sets: Victoria Petrovich. Costumes: Cheryl Lindley. Lights: Scott O’Donnell. Sound: Eric Ogilvie. Stage manager: Alexis Randolph.