One of the most exciting things I, a middle-aged woman, have seen coming out of Hollywood is an increasing trend of female celebrities refusing to apologize for growing older—from Jamie Lee Curtis proudly going gray and filler-free to Pamela Anderson taking an anti-makeup stance and Julia Roberts publicly denouncing cosmetic enhancements. It’s a pleasure to see them continue landing lead roles in films while also challenging the long-held double standard that celebrates men who age well while sidelining women simply because they have the nerve to age.
Unfortunately, these women remain the exception, not the rule. Our society does not value age, nor the wisdom and confidence that come with it, which puts the aging woman through a kind of hell. That’s the idea conveyed by local actor/playwright Kell Kittell in his original musical, Club Inferno, now running at Brüka Theatre. The play, having enjoyed a successful Bay Area run that met with positive critical reception, is a tight, satisfyingly entertaining rumination on the topic.
Drawing upon Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno, the classic story of Dante’s journey through the nine circles of Hell, Club Inferno reimagines hell as a seedy nightclub that plays host to an aging female performer, Dante (Robin Soli), and her three insolent backup dancers (Heather Belanger, Serena Ojeda, and Alex Biber), who keep trying to steal the spotlight from the woman who put them there. When a spotlight falls and hits Dante on the head, knocking her to the ground, she finds herself in an unfamiliar land—Limbo, as it turns out, the land between Heaven and Hell where lost souls have a chance to repent. Like in Alighieri’s version, the poet Virgil appears (as one might imagine, in a white robe and carrying a lyre) to “ferry” Dante through the underworld. But in Kittell’s reimagined version, Virgil (played by Sean Bridges) is a nearly useless figure, blind to the dangers of the underworld while he rocks out on his lyre…