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San Francisco Weekly: Stage

excerpted from 'I am Woman: Four Plays redefine the word diva, for good and bad'

by Chloe Veltman

Article Published May 3, 2006

Unless your idea of a diva is an octo- genarian Wal-Mart employee with heat rash, Karen Ripley and Annie Larson's Waiting for FEMA ranks low on the prima donna charts. Inspired by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this scruffy comedy provides a snapshot of two grumpy old ladies as they flail about on the roof of a building under the blazing New Orleans sun, attempting to construct a makeshift raft while trying to attract (without success) the attention of Federal Emergency Management Agency helicopters as they fly by. Ripley and Larson, female counterparts to Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon's Grumpy Old Men, give energetic, slapstick performances as hurricane survivors Molly and Edna, respectively. Lyrical blues numbers accompanied by Jack "Applejack" Walroth on guitar reflect the women's growing frustration at having been forgotten by the feds. The show's baggy, ad-libbed structure might make Larson and Ripley's already half-assed Beckett spoof feel even more rambling and directionless, yet the duo's clownlike antics still endears. And although the empire of the diva might be a long way from the condemned rooftop upon which New Orleans' answer to Vladimir and Estragon bide their time, Exit Theatre Artistic Director Christina Augello's cameo turn as a giant crawfish, a vision in long, glittery eyelashes and gold lame, does imbue Waiting for FEMAwith a much-needed touch of camp glamour.