Cult play '5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche' becomes an unhinged immersive experience in L.A.

Anxieties owed to war. A civilization inhospitable to LGBTQ+ communities. And an underpinning of loneliness and suppressed yearning.

The play “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche” is acceptable successful 1956, but its themes resonate successful 2026. The United States is astatine war. Attacks connected cheery matrimony and different LGBTQ+ rights stay a cornerstone of today’s blimpish movement. A reimagining of the 2011 production, 1 fashionable with universities and fringe festivals, seeks to further modernize the amusement successful which a greeting gathering rapidly turns into a enactment successful a Cold War-era weaponry structure aft adjacent atomic annihilation.

When I arrived astatine the backmost country of a Glendale church, I was fixed a caller name. It was wide that “Todd” was not invited here. “Joan” turned retired to beryllium a suitable replacement, and I was instantly asked however my beingness had been since my hubby had died. For connected this nighttime I would nary longer beryllium occupying the relation of a consecutive achromatic male. Every assemblage subordinate is asked to instrumentality connected the persona of a widow, for losing a hubby appeared to beryllium a perquisite to participate this gathering of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertude Stein.

How did helium die, I was asked. “Ski accident,” I blurted out. “Yours?” A camping travesty that led to a carnivore mauling, I was told. Ad-libbing, successful summation to quiche, was connected the paper tonight. Metaphors, absurdities and seriousness intermingle successful this accumulation from New Forms LA and directed by Marissa Pattullo.

Pattullo’s imaginativeness for “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche” ramps up the interactivity, seeking to alteration a mostly accepted proscenium show, albeit 1 with a fewer moments of fourth-wall breaking, into 1 that is centered astir assemblage participation. Staged successful a flex abstraction without a tinge of irony astatine the Glendale Church of the Brethren, “5 Lesbians,” written by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood, has been reconstructed arsenic a mostly immersive production, that is 1 that asks audiences to thin successful and interact.

Jessica Damouni’s Ginny Cadbury devouring meal successful “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche,” a amusement that unfolds arsenic a elephantine metaphor.

(New Forms LA)

While determination is simply a tiny stage, it is utilized sparingly. The five-person formed roams the room, sitting astatine assorted circular tables to blur the lines betwixt publication and improvisation. Typically a svelte 75-minute show, connected the nighttime I saw the accumulation it swelled to astir 2 hours, allowing clip for drinks, mingling and, of course, the eating of a quiche. Pattullo has added an intermission, with quiches courtesy of Kitchen Mouse and Just What I Kneaded included successful the ticket.

For quiche, I was told often, was the superior taxable of speech astatine the Easter-timed meeting, truthful overmuch truthful that it was wide wrong moments that this was a gathering not of meal enthusiasts but of the repressed. The hidden meaning is nary secret; it’s successful the rubric of the play.

“It’s a elephantine metaphor,” Pattullo, 30, says. The show, she adds, “keeps uncovering ways to marque consciousness with the times, whether it’s Trump being elected, oregon we’re astatine war. Or cheery marriage. All of those things. A weaponry going disconnected and being trapped inside. It speaks to whoever is watching it.”

Pattullo, who splits clip gathering New Forms LA and serving tables astatine Los Feliz’s Little Dom’s, archetypal discovered the amusement portion successful assemblage successful the Midwest. It instantly resonated, and Pattullo has been tinkering with ways to execute it unrecorded ever since. During the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, she staged an online mentation of the show, and debuted it arsenic an immersive accumulation past winter. It’s backmost for 2 weekends this month.

“5 Lesbians” makes a comparatively creaseless modulation to the immersive format. Perhaps that’s due to the fact that the audience, successful the script, is formed arsenic attendees of the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertude Stein’s brunch meeting, whose motto is “no men, nary meat, each manners.” For astir the archetypal 30 minutes of the amusement we mostly interact with the actors. Dale Prist (Nicole Ohara) has hidden ambitions. Vern Schultz (Chandler Cummings) seems acceptable for the radical to chopped its charade. Lulie Stanwyck (Noelle Urbano) is warring truthful hard to enactment prim and due that she feels connected the verge of bursting.

“I truly similar to play,” Pattullo says, referencing however “5 Lesbians” lends itself to improvisation. “Some of the girls I deliberation are precise ‘stick to the script.’ I’m like, ‘Stray from the script.’ If radical travel successful late, telephone them out. If radical are talking, telephone them out. You tin set and improvise successful immersive theater. Having a publication but being capable to interruption from it, is truly amusive for me. It tickles me.”

Wren Robin (Emily Yetter), Vern Schultz (Chandler Cummings) and Lulie Stanwyck (Noelle Urbano) support meal successful “5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche.”

(New Forms LA)

There’s an underlying hostility successful the amusement due to the fact that it walks a enactment betwixt silliness and graveness. Ultimately, “5 Lesbians” is astir uncovering joyousness successful acheronian times, and moments animate uncomfortable laughter, specified arsenic jokes astir cheery matrimony being ineligible successful 4 years’ clip (1960) oregon Ginny Cadbury (Jessica Damouni) devouring a quiche successful a mode that leaves thing to the imagination. But it’s besides a amusement astir however stressful moments tin bring astir vulnerability and community, arsenic the full religion practically exhaled erstwhile Wren Robbin (Emily Yetter) yet fto her hairsbreadth down and expressed who she genuinely was.

“Even erstwhile we did it backmost erstwhile I was successful college, Trump had conscionable won, truthful it conscionable feels similar it’s keeping relevant,” Pattullo says. The timeliness, she says, makes it specified an amusing play to perform.

Pattullo volition sometimes, depending connected formed availability, instrumentality connected a relation successful the show. It’s a chance, she says, to amplify the play’s wackiness, which she believes helps puts audiences astatine easiness and makes its hard taxable substance easier to digest. She tries to make the astir outlandish communicative imaginable for erstwhile relaying to guests 1 connected 1 however her hubby perished.

“My communicative was a raccoon attack,” she says. “Because my hubby thought the raccoon was behaving with overseas intent, similar the raccoon was a spy oregon something. It was conscionable stupid.”

Or it was grounds of however immersive theatre tin delight erstwhile it deviates from the script.