The cure is an evening with Erma Bombeck as produced by The Human Race Theatre Company
Are You Feeling At Wit's End?
I grew up reading Erma Bombeck’s column in the newspaper and watching her humorous segments on Good Morning America. She was a role model of what I aspired to be: a hometown writer who had made it big. So when I learned that The Human Race Theatre Company was producing a one-woman show about Erma’s life, I eagerly anticipated this theatrical homage to a Dayton legend.
At Wit’s End tells the story of Erma as a suburban wife and mother and the defining moment when she attends the University of Dayton and hears three life-changing words: “you can write.” And write she did, producing a nationally syndicated column and 15 books. Among the set props are original volumes of Bombeck’s most popular works including “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?”, “The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank”, and the book that lends its title to the production, “At Wit’s End.”
Jennifer Joplin as Erma pulls off the daunting task of portraying a larger-than-life personality. She uses the intimate space of the Caryl D. Phillips Creativity Center to draw the audience into her performance, soliciting both laughs and bittersweet memories in her portrayal of the life Erma once described as the thin line between laughter and pain.
Even those familiar with Bombeck’s work will find a few surprises tucked within this play. For me, it was learning that Erma was an ardent supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment and a tireless champion for women’s rights. It was also seeing how Erma bravely faced serious illness and scathing criticism with humor and poise, to which Joplin showed Erma’s vulnerable side without betraying her fierceness.
The set design for this show captures the spirit of Bombeck’s everyday existence in its iconic representations of domestic life in the 1960s. We are reminded through Erma’s example of a scorched iron and Tupperware that being authentic and messy and real is a much better virtue than succumbing to the pressure of being Pinterest or Instagram-worthy as many wives and mothers do today.
And then there are Erma’s one-liners, delivered wryly by Joplin to an appreciative audience. My favorite? “Never go to a doctor where the office plants have died.” Now that is practical advice!
So if, like me, the rat race has left you feeling at wit’s end, treat yourself to the incomparable wisdom and wit of Erma Bombeck, playing now through May 20.
