It's still all the rage: 'Angry Housewives' opens Friday in Everett

EVERETT — Feminism is flavored with slapstick when "Angry Housewives" takes the stage, with a loopy plot, four trash-talking suburbanites and domestic props that range from cornflakes to teething rings.

"Angry Housewives" debuted in 1983 and set records as the longest-running production in Seattle theater history. Now, it's come full circle as the musical opens Friday at the Everett Theatre.

After all, Everett is where Chad Henry, the show's co-creator, was raised.

"I used to go to Saturday-matinee movies at that theater in my youth, and I wish them all really well," he said. "I hope they enjoy the hell out of it and have a great time."

On the surface, "Housewives" is about four friends in transition. Wendy (played by Dana Rice) is a bridge tender with a boyfriend (Michael Hulslander) who won $1 million in a fishing derby. Jetta (Britta Grass) is married to Larry (Bruce Eriksen), an uptight attorney, with whom she has a daughter. Bev (Marni Dilgard) is a financially strapped, widowed mom with a teenage son named Tim (Robby Nielsen). Carol (Cheryl Phillips) is a high-school music teacher.

When Tim brings home a flier advertising a punk-rock "battle of the bands" contest, they go after the $1,000 top prize, spurred by the repossession of Bev's car.

They trick up some costumes, spike their hair and inventory their musical talent. (Bev played folk guitar in church, Carol played a zither, Wendy was a drummer in her high-school marching band, and Jetta, the lead singer, was an accordionist.) They go onstage, hurling motherly abuse at the crowd.

They win, and this starts a chain of events that brings such numbers as "Man From Glad," which sports an Ozzy Osbourne moment with the head of a Ken doll, and "Not at Home," Jetta's sad reflection on her empty marriage.

It also hits on why the show has outlasted the punk-rock phenomenon.

"We all are too tightly wrapped in this culture, all constrained by needing to act polite," Henry said. "This moment when the women cut loose and let all their demons out in a positive way, and get rewarded for it, takes the audience for the ride."

Henry has been associated with the Denver Center Theatre Company as an actor and in new-play development, and is the author of nearly 20 plays and musicals.

But it's "Angry Housewives," which he wrote with A.M. Collins in 1983, that tops his list of hits. The show, which premiered in a 99-seat house, went on to run for nearly seven years in Pioneer Square Theatre spaces.

The production opened Off-Broadway in 1986 and has had a healthy run in regional theater, including most major cities in America.

Apart from a one-day touring production that played at the Everett Civic Auditorium in the late 1980s, "Angry Housewives" has not played in Henry's hometown.

His father, Bob Henry, was a drama teacher at Everett High School. Steeped in theater, Chad Henry learned all aspects of play production. At 15, he played a 91-year-old butler.

Henry graduated from the University of Washington in 1972 with a major in dance and drama.

Another Snohomish County resident, Linda Hartzell, was attending the UW at the same time. Now the artistic director of Seattle Children's Theatre, Hartzell had known Henry for years.

Collins came to them with a germ of an idea from a National Enquirer story about housewives going on strike in France. She wrote the script, Henry wrote the music and lyrics, and Hartzell directed.

The show opened May 23, 1983, with the three creators "petrified," Henry recalled.

"We sat in the sound booth and shared a bottle of Wild Turkey. We didn't have any expectations."

The reviewers raved at the suburban Pygmalion tale.

"I think a lot of people back then felt they weren't hip, part of the youth culture," Henry reflected.

"Housewives" answered that, he said.

"The sense that, all of a sudden, by being yourself and letting yourself go, you could be embraced as someone that mattered."

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com