A Feminine Ending

by Sarah Treem

Amanda, twenty-five, wants to be a great composer. But at the moment, she's living in New York City and writing advertising jingles to pay the rent while her fiancé, Jack, pursues his singing career. So when Amanda's mother, Kim, calls one evening from New Hampshire and asks for her help with something she can't discuss over the phone, Amanda is only too happy to leave New York. Once home, Kim reveals that she's leaving Amanda's father and needs help packing. Amanda balks and ends up (gently) hitting the postman, who happens to be her first boyfriend. They spend the night together in an apple orchard, where Amanda tries to tell Billy how her life got sidetracked. It has something to do with being a young woman in a profession that only recognizes famous men. Billy acts like he might have the answer, but doesn't. Neither does Amanda's mother. Or, for that matter, her father. A Feminine Ending is a gentle, bittersweet comedy about a girl who knows what she wants but not quite how to get it. Her parents are getting divorced, her fiancée is almost famous, her first love reappears, and there's a lot of noise in her head but none of it is music. Until the end. "Ending′ is a promising beginning...the playwright has a sense of humor that brings to mind a budding Wendy Wasserstein and a liberated sense of form that evokes a junior Paula Vogel."-Los Angeles Times "Darkly comic. FEMININE ENDING has undeniable wit." -New York Post. "Appealingly outlandish humor." -The New York Times. "Courageous. The 90-minute piece swerves with nerve and naivete. Sarah Treem has a voice all her own." -Newsday.

Genres: Plays, Drama, Theatre

76 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Carolyn]

Started out really good and lol funny, but disintegrated rather quickly. Such promise. Oh well.

[Mackenzie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing more humbling than rereading something you loved as a 21 year old

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid comedy about how we sabotage ourselves from going after what we want -- until everyone around us starts doing whatever they want, thus constituting a wake-up call.

Treem has a sprightly voice and is eminently concerned with the way women get on in the world. Her characters at first feel fairly garden variety (the unambitious and lost artist, the batty mother, etc.), but they soon reveal themselves to have surprising depth -- my favorite example being Amanda's perfect first boyfriend who's turned out to be a postal worker and pothead. Treem's humanity and sweet gesture of an ending keep A Feminine Ending fresh, even as its theatrical weight withholds itself until its climatic scenes.

[Martin Denton · Rating 2 out of 5]

The play starts out seeming to be a love story, between a young woman from a small New Hampshire town who has come to New York to fulfill her dreams of being a composer and the nascent rock star with whom she finds herself, much to her surprise, attached. Treem writes these two as young but grown-up, which is refreshing; it looks like Amanda has thought hard about her choice to put her own artistic career on hold in order to support Jack's; this feels like a smart decision rooted in pragmatism as well as love, and I found myself believing in it.

But then the playwright puts obstacles in the path that don't feel organic, one of which is a frantic phone call from Amanda's mom, back in New Hampshire, lucid but vague and apparently in severe crisis. Amanda needs to deal with her mother right away, and when she does so Treem abandons Jack and starts up a new plot line in which Kim (the mom) is planning to leave her husband of 30 years because she's bored with her life. It's unfortunate that Treem never lets this character make much sense; even when I at long last felt I was understanding her motivation for leaving Amanda's father David, the events of the play undercut the explanation I'd devised and I was back at square one, confused.

Amanda also has a detour fling with Billy, a boy she knew in high school; for a while it looks like the story has shifted gears again: Will Amanda abandon her New York idea and settle down with someone who really knows her and will support her in her art?

No such luck; Treem does tie up most of the loose ends she litters her play with, but the conclusion is not at all satisfying. Her writing is scattershot and just not particularly skillful here; she indulges in writerly tricks (an extended metaphor about musical composition that gives the piece its title is the most obvious example) and also allows herself lots of lazy devices (such as letting Amanda break the fourth wall constantly to talk to us without ever explaining precisely where Amanda thinks she is or whom she thinks she's talking to), but she fails to pull together a compelling story.

[Wade'a Tadros · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this play and I find that it may work easily for a short play, with a small cast. However, I would say it is not for all audiences and is a little bit mature. Lots of PG material that wouldn’t be welcome on stage in schools for example. As for the plot it was very clear and kept me flipping through the pages. Sarah Treem really knows how to write a play that every word of is like gold ringing to my ears. I could imagine every line being said and BILLY or DAVID doing set changes quietly in the back as AMANDA speaks to the audience. Which brings me to another thing that I really enjoyed, the way AMANDA addresses the audience directly and makes me feel like her BFF talking to me about her life and what things are looking like for her. And just to be clear, the only reason that 5th star fell of is because of the little too much sexual content, making it difficult to perform at places like schools, for instance where the audience is young and wouldn’t enjoy being exposed to such content. But otherwise, a very carefully and well written piece… like snow melting off the roof….

[Ceci Touzon · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started out really witty and interesting but it got boring as it went on. I understand the message but I don’t understand why we needed a whole play to convey it. There was no resolution and that just bothers me. But, it was interesting, funny, and well written.

[Lauren Ingebrigtsen · Rating 2 out of 5]

A couple good monologues but it does have that contemporary-theatre-main-character-talks-to-the-audience-about-her-small-town-big-dreams-white-people-martial-problems flavor that so many shows from this era have, which isn’t my personal favorite

[Ashleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had an odd structure for the points it was trying to make. I feel like it could have been a one act set at her parents' house and no action take place in NYC at all. The humour was easy to pick out of the dialogue which was refreshing.

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really beautifully written play— super funny and does a good job of breaking down the idea that marriage is something women should aspire to.

[maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was okay, not much of what I thought it was going to be felt more comedy than anything but maybe it was because im not used to reading plays.

[Chloe Selavka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hole lee shit.

[Mathilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

gillian jacobs was a great choice for Amanda😌

[Lenna Wren · Rating 4 out of 5]

not a life changer but i thoroughly enjoyed it and the family dynamics were incredibly relatable for me

[Amelia Schoeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars. This has some good female monologues.

[Frankie DeGiorgio]

Not a great play, but I’m leaving off the star rating in the spirit of the holidays (it would probably be a 2).

[Adia Cotto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved every bit of it, especially as a musician. The metaphors are gorgeously written.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raw, real, and complicated.

[Anna]

A great one fs

[Glynnis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure about this one - I like that the central character is a woman, and I can relate to her a lot, but I don't like the fact that she seems to be drifting around in her life as things happen. I get the drifting, but as a play, shouldn't there be more action she takes? I guess that's the whole point of the play...I dunno.

[Sherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent play about a young musician, Amanda, who puts her career on hold to support her fiance´who is an up and coming rock star. She is called home because her Mother plans to leave her father. She finds herself putting her own artistic career behind everyone elses needs and aspirations. She struggles to navigate these waters. A very contemporary story, very actable and well written.

[Madeline Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reread this one. At first, the fourth wall break structure annoyed me but the dialogue and content are so well crafted that I realized I was wrong about the fourth wall breaks. Sarah Treem is one of the greatest female playwrights. Just least she’s one of my favorites.