I’m too sexy for my housework
Lisa Ann Orkin was a happy — if incompetent — Jewish housewife for 20 years. That is, until her husband suffered a midlife crisis and split a year ago.
The result is “Housewife in Blue!!!”, Orkin’s scathingly funny account of the most unfunny months of her life, now at the Whitefire Theatre in Sherman Oaks.
At the beginning of her new musical comedy, the Comedy Store veteran is lounging in a slip on a fuzzy pink ironing board singing, “I’m a sexy housewife. I’m wearing Saran Wrap. Scooping up dog cr–. With my high heels ooonnnn.”
In another sequence, she reads the e-mail her husband sent announcing he was leaving the marriage. In another, she recounts how she feverishly labored to crack his AOL password (it turned out to be “password”) and discovered he had a mistress. The low point — recounted in a ditty called “Xmas Opera” — was the time Orkin confronted hubby at his love nest and he called the cops.
The 38-year-old comic has made a career of spoofing marital sex, her bad housekeeping, her interfaith marriage and growing up Jewish in a Catholic neighborhood. (“My friend Michelle had a plant called a Wandering Jew. She named it Lisa,” Orkin quips.)
Creating the play — a monologue with songs — has been cathartic for Orkin. “The only way I’ve been able to get through this is to spit it out, write it out,” she says. “I’ve become more OK with not being married.”
In the play, Orkin’s bubbie advises her to “take advantage and be a slut.” But Orkin doesn’t think so. “I haven’t dated since high school,” she told the Journal. “I am so not ready to be dating.”
For tickets, call (818) 841-6699. — By Naomi Pfefferman
Knesset panel to ban @’$%!
The Israeli Knesset’s Ethics Committee plans to distribute a list of banned words in an effort to improve the parliament’s typically overheated atmosphere, according to the Israeli daily Ma’ariv.
On the list are such words as “Nazi,” “idiot” and “monster” — as well as more piquant terms like “swamp fly,” “well-poisoner” and “zero of zeros.” — Jewish Telegraphic Agency
