Women Laughing Alone with Salad

by Sheila Callaghan

What’s on the menu for Meredith, Tori, and Sandy, the three women in Guy’s life? Healthy lifestyles, upward mobility, meaningful sex? Or self-loathing and distorted priorities? Inspired by the strangely ubiquitous advertising trend of picturing attractive women blissfully eating salad, award-winning playwright Sheila Callaghan breaks all the rules of our image-obsessed culture in Women Laughing Alone With Salad. This raw comedy is served with a side of feminism and tossed with audacious imagery, biting social critique, and devastating humor.

Genres: Plays

80 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2019

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wickedly funny and VERY GRAPHIC/SPICY/CRINGEY stereotyoes, but a woman wrote it to make a point. And kinda like the Barbie film, the Ken character (aptly named "Guy") winds up as the main character of sorts.

[Jessica Hirsh · Rating 2 out of 5]

And for today's episode of what the hell did I just read:

What the hell did I just read?

The title is incredible, and there were so many interesting ideas in here, but at the end of the day, I wasn't sure what we were trying to say here. This felt like a play written by the most "pick me" of "pick me girls".

[Jessica Whittemore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know if you can make women better and more self-assured by hating them, as much as I also want to scream, "Eat, damn it!" And I didn't like having a man driving all the action.

I did like gender-swap Act II.

[Ari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Callaghan dissects issues of body shaming, aging, and consumerism with sharp wit and realistic characters. Her humor bites back! Love the ending.

[Kyla B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting play on gender, internalized hatred, societal expectations. Would love to see how the double casting plays out on stage.

[Eve Fitzz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This play is so crazy bonkers. I would love to see this done because some of it is too crazy to even visualise. I like the message behind it, women's relationships with their bodies and how men degrade women and their bodies. It's again very black mirror type and quite futuristic. I didn't totally love reading it cause i was hella confused at times but would be so curious to see this put to stage and it might make more sense visually for me. But defo rate it. I love the way the women portray the men in the script, would be so interested to see that.