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Bitchin’ babes laugh at life’s ups and downs

By Daily Bruin Staff

Feb. 28, 1996 9:00 p.m.

Bitchin’ babes laugh at life’s ups and downs

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.

Comments to [email protected]

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