Bitchin' babes laugh at life's ups and downs

Published: Thursday, February 29, 1996

Repertoire uses private experiences, improv for show

By Kathleen Rhames

Daily Bruin Contributor

OK, so your rent's late, you have a 10 page paper due tomorrow and you can't find a date for Friday night. Life's got you down? Well don't fret, because just when you think you've seen it all, The Four Bitchin' Babes are sweeping your way, promising yet another unprecedented performance of love, laughter and real life.

"We cover everything!" says Debi Smith, one of the four Babes. "We tackle some really heavy stuff and yet still have our share of unrequited love songs. No topic is spared."

Smith, along with co-stars Christine Lavin, Sally Fingerett and Megon McDonough are The Four Bitchin' Babes, an all-female musical ensemble who interpret contemporary social issues through lighthearted, comic folk song. The Babes, who tour the U.S. both as solo artists and as a group, will perform "Buy Me, Bring Me, Take Me: Don't Mess My Hair" at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater Friday, March 1 at 8 p.m.

The performance is part of a national tour launched to support the Babes' latest album, "Fax It, Charge It, Don't Ask Me What's For Dinner," and has won acclaim from audiences nationwide.

"I think it's because the things we write about are humorous things that everybody can relate to," says Smith of the show. "We're not afraid to tackle any subject on stage. Whether we're talking or singing about it everybody goes, 'oh yeah!'"

The show comments on a variety of issues that range from love and embarrassing encounters to serious topics dealing with disease, abuse and loss. Each of the Babes writes her own material for songs and all four women agree that inspiration stems from personal experience.

"It's really about things that are going on with us," says Christine Lavin, also a Babe. "We're four real people who have real lives and we sing about our real lives. Our lives are very much like those of the people who come to our shows except that we're able to make ours rhyme and put music to them."

This relationship with the audience is apparent in the repertoire of songs performed. Debi Smith sings a tune she wrote called "In My Dreams," which describes the love she shares for her husband and 6-year-old son. Third Babe Sally Fingerett performs a song based on a Peter, Paul and Mary piece recorded about a man who dies of AIDS.

However serious the topics may get, depression is not an element of the performance. In fact, it involves an extraordinary sense of comic style, conveyed through the Babes' interaction with the audience.

One of the performance's highlights occurs during the intermission when the Babes take up a collection of "song suggestions" from the audience. The group uses these ideas for songs and, according to Smith, the result is hilarious.

"You never know what you're going to pull out of the bag," says Smith. "Meg, Chris and Sally happen to be very strong ad-libbers so you just never know what's going to happen. People are as much interested in what's going on between the songs and it can be quite funny."

Lavin agrees with Smith that audience suggestions are the best part of the performance.

"Comedy just flows through the show," she says. "We have funny songs we plan to do but a lot of the improvisational stuff comes out of what the audience asks for. We have so much fun reading the things they write and try to do something from our repertoire that relates to what they've written down. To me it's the central part of the show."

Another important element in the show is the ability of each woman to bring their own unique lifestyle to the ensemble. Three of the four Babes, including Smith, are wives and mothers while Lavin is happily single.

"When you're a mother, the kinds of emotions you feel as a parent are new and different from the things you feel when you're single," Smith says. "So of course as a writer any emotion that's new or that is strong makes you go: 'What is that? I want to write about that. What is it? Why am I feeling that?' I think that comes out in our writing."

For Lavin, on the other hand, songwriting takes a different route. Being the only single Babe in the group allows her to indulge in more solo work than the others and this of course demands a lot of travelling. Luckily for her, having a boyfriend who is busy as well allows her to plan her travelling schedule around his.

"I'm just not the motherly type!" Lavin says. "My writing reflects more of living on the run and having rendezvous all over the place which can be kind of romantic and yet is still hard."

Lavin is the original founder of The Four Bitchin' Babes, which began in 1990. After touring full time as a solo artist for five-and-a-half years, Lavin felt it was time she took a different course. She decided to put four solo artists together on stage and give them different cities to play in as group and see the result.

"We had a blast the first time we did it," she says. "As Megon says on stage: 'These are the girlhood friends I really didn't meet until I was in my mid-30s.'"

Lavin remembers how interested she was to see if four solo artists could actually mesh as a group and be willing to give up the spotlight. Something must have clicked, because the Babes all agree on one thing: the ensemble is a team effort and a group thing where everything is shared and enjoyed together.

"The wonderful thing about the Babes is that we're not like four over-ambitious divas trying to win gold records and get on the Billboard charts," she says. "We form a sense of community with the audience. It's a feeling at the end of the show that we're all travelling through time together and we all have a lot of things in common. It's sort of a musical celebration of ordinary lives and this sort of reaffirms that we're all OK."'

STAGE: Four Bitchin' Babes at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater Friday, March 1 at 8 p.m. TIX: $29.50, $26.50, $9 for students. For more info, call (310) 825-2101.

However serious the topics may get, depression is not an element of the performance. In fact, it involves an extraordinary sense of comic style.

"Life According to Four Bitchin' Babes" brings together the talents of Christine Lavin, Sally Fingerett, Megon McDonough and Debi Smith, performing at the Veterans Wadsworth this Friday.

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