Philly Fringe 2018: Lee Minora's 'White Feminist'

After an in-our-faces introduction, Minora appears in underwear, pantyhose, and pink pussy hat to rev up the crowd. "Fellas," she proclaims, "give yourselves a pat on the back because we're not gonna fuckin' do that for you anymore!"

She quips that the show's going to happen "faster than an abortion in Texas, which has a mandatory waiting period." She then throws us triumphant middle fingers and disappears backstage.

We're all Beckies

When she returns, she wears a blonde wig, elegant white dress with attached cape, and the high heels that seem essential for women on TV these days. She's the host of "Becky's Time," a morning talk show not unlike the Megyn Kelly Show, with Kathy Lee Gifford's wine drinking and constant family references. We play her studio audience.

TV talk-show hosts are ripe for broad satire, and Minora excels at excess. "Sit back, relax, and watch me make progress," she instructs. Walking a thin line between empathetic and disagreeable, she applies a forced smile, too-big shrieks of laughter, and a hint of desperation.

Much of the performance is improvised with the audience. Minora played opening night's SRO audience with wit and grace, using our answers to shape her character's shallow views.

She asked what international issues we care about. One person said the Canadian oil pipeline, and Minora's answers clearly and hilariously reveal that Becky knows nothing about pipelines or why anyone cares. When the audience member explained that it ruins "virgin forest," Becky replied with shocked glee about it being a sexual issue.

"I'm saying 'folx' with an 'X,'" she brags. "Can you hear it?" She touts her pet fundraiser, the "Race for the Jog," and her "voluntourism," during which she traveled to an impoverished country to help build a school that was, of course, named for her.

I love the way Becky poses in a studied imitation of thoughtfulness as each "commercial break" begins, then suffers a director yelling in her earpiece before saying "We're back!" with that huge fake smile TV people think is required and effective these days. She talks in slogans, not sentences.

"Take a whine and make it shine!"

When Becky shows us pictures and video, she refers to a blank screen hanging onstage and narrates what we "see." This is especially fun when she reads the home audience's tweets because we see her immediate visceral response, which isn't pretty. "You are a pandering opportunist" is the least hurtful.

Then White Feminist gets surprisingly real. Satirizing privileged white TV hosts would entertain by itself, but this hourlong show careens unexpectedly and skillfully from witty repartee to a surprisingly genuine and vulnerable moment that... well, see it.

Suddenly, the guffawing audience — our cheer enhanced by libations from the adjacent Quig's Pub — goes eerily, completely silent. The set's bright pinks seem to fade. We lean in, experiencing the genuine woman buried deep inside Becky. It's the kind of gut punch every writer, actor, and director dreams of delivering and no audience forgets.

White Feminist is the best sort of Fringe fun: wickedly nasty satire with a twist that makes it all shockingly, satisfyingly real.

To read Alaina Johns's review, click here.