Arts & Entertainment

Breaking all the rules

‘Hung’ star shines in one-woman Studio comedy show

Published

15 years ago

December 8, 2011

Patrick Folliard

Lauren Weedman in ‘Bust.’ (Photo by Carol Pratt; courtesy Studio Theatre)

‘Bust’
Through Dec 18
The Studio Theatre
1501 14th Street, NW
$35-$60
202-332-3300
studiotheatre.org

If you’re not yet familiar with comedic actress/writer/playwright Lauren Weedman, you need to be. Best known for her stint as a correspondent on “The Daily Show” and playing Horny Patty on HBO’s “Hung,” Weedman is hilarious.

In her mostly autobiographical, one-woman show “Bust” — now at the Studio Theatre — Weedman revisits her real-life experience as a volunteer in a Los Angeles women’s jail. Playing all the parts (inmates, guards, friends, other volunteers, a Manhattan magazine editor and herself), Weedman wittily juxtaposes her time navigating the labyrinth-like, ridiculously bureaucratic correctional system with her equally surreal life as a working actress in L.A.

The way Weedman portrays herself (manic, insecure, largely self-absorbed but coming from a good place), she couldn’t be less suited to volunteer for an inmate buddy program called Beyond Bars. After arriving late and disrupting orientation, she goes on to break every one of the group’s rules. In her first meeting with the prisoners she’s come to help, she reveals her home address, details of her sex life and makes promises she can’t possibly keep (all big no-nos). She’s fairly neurotic, entirely without filter and boy oh boy, is it funny.

Not surprisingly, “Bust’s” authority figures particularly dislike her. The earnest orientation leader assumes (not wholly unwarrantedly) that Weedman is high on cocaine and during the initial jailhouse tour, a seasoned Chicano guard informs her that all those incessant wisecracks will get her killed. She spends a lot of time apologizing all over the place for what’s just popped out of her mouth.

Ably directed by Allison Narver, it’s a fast-paced 90 minutes. There is no set. Other than a rolling ladder and a rolling stool, the stage is empty. Dressed in a white wife beater and black pants, the 40-ish blond actress seamlessly changes from person to person. Not a lot of actors can inhabit more than a dozen characters of varied gender, ethnic background and class with Weedman’s same dazzling incisiveness. Whether it’s a tweaked-out inmate, abusive TV commercial director or the wise senior volunteer named Irene, she’s dead-on.

Toward the beginning of the play when the volunteers share their reason for being there, the Weedman character says she wants to get outside of herself, to think of something other than her weight. Then she lets slip out that she also thought, perhaps, inside jail she might stand a chance at being the prettiest girl in the room. She’s then quick to add that she’s straight — almost entirely so.

Though she does TV and increasingly more feature films, Weedman continues to make time for solo performances. Mined from her life, the plays sometimes contain gay and lesbian characters. In interviews Weedman references gay friends and jokes about how casting agents typically see her as the lesbian sidekick. She has an LGBT following.

Hers is a self-deprecating, smart, outrageous and occasionally silly humor. She simultaneously finds a lot of madness and some meaning in her life. Just when her onstage self becomes discouraged by the prisoners’ self-defeating behavior and afraid that she’s been a totally ineffective volunteer, a prisoner sincerely thanks Weedman for making all those weekly visits. It’s an extremely poignant moment. And then it’s back to more laughs.

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Books

New book reveals what we can learn from animal sex

‘Poking the Squid’ on homosexuality, gender swapping, and more

Published

11 hours ago

July 13, 2026

Terri Schlichenmeyer

(Book cover image courtesy W.W. Norton)

‘Poking the Squid: What We Can Learn from Animal Sex’
By Perrin Roosevelt Ireland
c.2026, W.W. Norton
$29.99 241 pages

Birds do it.

According to Cole Porter, bees do, too, but it’s not exactly what he imagined. Wild and tame, avians, insects, and mammals all have sex – although not always as you’ve been told or for reasons you might think. Even educated fleas do it and, as in the new book, “Poking the Squid” by Perrin Roosevelt Ireland, humans can learn from them all.

If you read through scientific papers on animal reproduction, you might notice something unusual: for scientists, the word “sex” means a lot of different things.

Says Ireland, “It’s used to describe behaviors, biology, life histories, and more.”

That might be because animals are not simply binary.

Take, for instance, hyenas. It’s easy for the casual observer to mistake a male hyena for a female and vice versa because of stereotypes of anatomy. Mating, for hyenas, requires subordination for the male and a nifty trick on the part of the female’s body to get things done.

Our feathered friends are no birdbrains, either: black-browed albatrosses were once thought to be monogamous but global warming seems to have changed their nesting habits sometimes. Male flamingos have sex with one another, as a territorial thing; other birds and animals form same-sex pairs for other reasons.

The Chinese mantis eats her mate after fertilization. Female snakes, alpacas, guinea pigs, and monkeys are anatomically able to enjoy sex. Genitalia between species varies quite a bit; in fact, the vaginas of ducks “are highly complex.” Lionesses will mate up to 100 times when in heat. Female damselflies will change into a “third sex” to avoid overly aggressive mating males. Bearded dragons can change their sex, if needed, as can yellow clown goby fish. And seahorse pregnancy and birth sparked a book banning in Tennessee.

So, asks Ireland, if animals, including us, vary so much in biology and life, “… why are we using the word sex like it means something, anything, consistent?!”

Pick up “Poking the Squid,” page through it a few seconds, and you’ll see that the information here is largely told through cartoon-like drawings mixed with captions. It seems to be something on the lighter side, but don’t let that artwork fool you.

Author Perrin Roosevelt Ireland offers readers solid information that cozies up to the scholarly, with hard science, philosophy, feminism, and quotations from researchers to support it, thus furthering the narrative and hitting the points squarely. If you see the art and expect something lighthearted, comic, and small-talk-worthy, you could be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you want solid, wryly serious facts, you’re in for a treat.

There’s lots of learning to be gleaned here, and some slight nudge-wink whimsy to emphasize the absurdity of wrong-headed thinking. This can make readers feel like they’re in-the-know on the jokes, and the playfulness balances the seriousness of the information well.

So, serious, scholarly, or slightly silly, none of these are negative but you’re going to know what you want from a book like this. For the right reader, someone in the mood, “Poking the Squid” is wild.

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