“All The Girls Standing In The Line For The Bathroom,” offers a delicious voyeuristic view of what goes on in a women’s bathroom in a Los Angeles nightclub on New Year’s Eve right before they all ring in 2020. Through the lens of complex female characters spanning over 20 years in age, diverse ethnic backgrounds, gender expression and sexual preferences, the cast of 9 explores the experience of identifying as a woman in a heteronormative space. In the powder room there is literal blood, sweat and tears, a place where you hear how your friend really feels about her date, the next stall’s drunk phone call, where fights are started and lifelong friendships have the opportunity to be created.
In the safety of the bathroom’s enclosed doors the women explore the ridiculous ways they turn down one man after the next through impressive feminine dance numbers that will have you feeling lustful one moment and feeling empowered the next. Through the mediums of song, dance, and intimate dialogue you are only privy to inside the girls room, the universal yet very individual struggles of womanhood are uncovered. The women realize they have many shared experiences that are contorted and altered by their privilege or lack thereof, by their personal or inherited traumas and more. Their exchange with each other unpacks society’s deeply ingrained teachings that their worth is derived in physical appearances, other’s experience of their bodies, and by their affinity for catching the attention of men.
Most importantly, the play allows these women to have more empathy and love for one another by the end. In a world where women are constantly given the communication to look, act, and speak a certain way, they find that none of them can speak for all women’s experience even if they identify as the same gender. It is my hope that anyone watching the show can see themselves or someone they know in the characters, and realize that it is imperative to allow others to speak and live their truths even when they don’t agree or understand.
