I don’t have the bonafides of a true cheesemonger, but I do fancy myself as sort of a minor cheese expert.
I come from a small town in southwest Wisconsin, whose high school sports team was known as the Cheesemakers. I know enough to accurately guess how long a cheddar has been aged for, and I can tell which dairy might have made a particular wheel of Swiss. I’ve been inside a cheese cave, and I’m the only one in my family and friend-group who likes limburger.
So it was with great interest that I checked out Hell in a Handbag’s newest entry in its The Golden Girls: The Lost Episodes series, The Cheese Pyramid.
That’s “pyramid” as in “pyramid scheme.” Lovable Rose (Ed Jones) has sunk her life-savings into “Olafway,” a multi-level marketing business ostensibly celebrating the cheeses of her storied hometown, St. Olaf, Minnesota. Rose has fallen under the spell of marketing guru Inga (Gretchen Greear), who’s playing on nostalgia for St. Olaf with a longterm ambition of turning her MLM into a cult.
When Dorothy (Handbag Artistic Director David Cerda, who also wrote the show), Blanche (Grant Drager) and Sophia (Kelly Bolton) learn that Rose is $10,000 in the hole unless she unloads several crates of cheese, bad wine and cheese-party favors, they chip in to create the ultimate cheese celebration to help their friend dig herself out. Rose and Dorothy’s ex-husband Stan (Scott Sawa)—he’s also falling for the scheme—rock “traditional” St. Olaf folk uniforms through much of the show.
As with the last Handbag show I saw, The Real Housewives of the North Pole, the plot’s not the tightest: Act I sets up Rose’s dilemma and Act 2 is the party itself, with ample opportunity for audience participation. I never thought I’d ever get offered a three-way with Blanche Devereaux, but that’s where I’m at right now. Joining in the festivities is Sophia’s friend Sylvia (Danne W. Taylor), a psychic who’s also a hot mess.
The show opens with Stan leading the audience in a rendition of the Golden Girls theme, immediately getting us into the headspace for a visit to our favorite Miami retirees. There aren’t many surprises for longtime Handbag viewers, but there are still enough laughs and cheer to make The Cheese Pyramid worth your time. The scene transitions are accompanied by legacy Dairy Council and other cheese-related commercials, as well as BS cheese trivia read by Inga (“Colby cheese was invented by the British actress Joan Collins”).
You sometimes feel like everything but the kitchen sink is being tossed into the mix—at one point, even Walter the Wonder Dog (Cerda’s dog Walter) was trotted out for a cameo to tug at our heartstrings. No complaints there, Walter was adorable. Some script-tightening would have been good, even if director Brigette Ditmar kept the action brisk and well-staged, which is likely not an easy task in Handbag’s small theater.
Jones largely carries the show. Rose’s snafu is a potential indictment of her decision-making and problem-solving capabilities, and there are some moments where her veneer of Midwestern dorkiness betrays some true vulnerabilities. Cerda, Drager and Bolton all similarly help Cheese Pyramid do what these Lost Episodes do best: revisiting old sitcom friends in an era when TV’s largely been co-opted by reality shows, singing competitions and police procedurals.
Cheese Pyramid may be short of story surprises, but it is long on fun. I grew up with The Golden Girls and always welcome Handbag’s “lost episodes”; this was one of the best. And adding in lots of jokes about cheese made it all the better.
The Golden Girls: The Cheese Pyramid runs through June 21 at The Clutch, 4335 N. Western Ave. For tickets and information, see here.