×
How desperate does a housewife need to be to standaside as her husband slowly freezes to death in a basement meat locker? In her2002 comedy, The Smell of the Kill,playwright Michele Lowe creates a vivid upper-crust world where such a scenarioplays out. The story revolves around the wivesNicky, Debra and Mollyof threecollege buddies who have been getting together for monthly dinner parties foryears. Sipping on cognac in the kitchen while their unseen husbands putt golfballs in the living room, the women reveal that their marriages are in anunhealthy spiral of rejection and deceit. Nicky, played with sharp wit andmischievous persuasion by Julie Swenson, struggles to find balance betweenmotherhood and career as she manages the fallout of her husband's recentindictment for embezzlement. Karen Estrada wields stellar comedic timing asMolly, who hopes the enmeshed relationship she shares with her husband willreward her with a baby of her own. Debra, silently suffering her husband'sinfidelity, is played by Melinda Pfundstein, who rises to the challenge ofportraying a woman hiding behind a steel, but buckling, façade.
Under Reva Fox's direction, the talented Renaissancecast delivers a briskly paced, agile performance. When their men accidentlylock themselves in a walk-in freezer, fate hands the women a “Get Out ofMarriage Free” card. The suspense lies in whether or not they choose to redeemit.
The Smell of the Kill continues through Nov. 1 at the Broadway Theatre Center's Studio Theatre.
