Miss Margarida’s Way

Stand-up comedian Don Rickles made a career out of insults, delivered while nerved-up on stage, belittling people in the audience for the way they dressed, behaved, or merely came to his attention.

Think of Don Rickles as an eighth-grade biology teacher, and you’re getting close to the theory of Miss Margarida’s Way at the Thistle Dew Dessert Theatre.

Actress Suzi Milligan, in the title role, gives a deliberately abusive performance as the teacher-from-hell. She grabs some chalk, goes to the “green board,” and does things that would ordinarily get a real teacher fired—writing words like “asshole,” and sketching an erect penis with balls.

Daring? More like sophomoric. A concept that might have sustained a three-minute sketch—but not a full-length show? You’re getting real warm.

Miss Margarida refers to her students, i.e. the audience, as “morons.” She also calls them “silly little fairies” and hurls other insults, sexual and otherwise. She asks repeatedly if there’s anyone in class responding to the names “Messiah, Jesus, or Holy Ghost.” She offers (threatens?) to take off her clothes. She makes racial references. There’s something to offend almost anyone in this show. (Credit to playwright Roberto Athayde, I guess, as interpreted by director Greg Stirnaman.)

But wait, there’s more. Miss Margarida demands that the audience sing one of her songs. “Sing, you bastards!” she yells.

And at another point, she warns, “I can keep you here all night!” with the intent of forcing her student to copy sentences—praising Miss Margarida, of course—again and again.

Actually, as a member of the audience, you’re entitled to opt out—that’s exactly what some people did last Sunday afternoon.

Milligan certainly puts out lots of energy. If you measure her performance by the degree to which she grates on your nerves, she succeeds. And let’s acknowledge Milligan’s good work in the past: as the materialistic suburban translation of Helen of Troy in Orestes 2.5, and singing in the Garbeau’s musical Blues in the Night.

But this show is almost entirely bereft of charm, and virtually devoid of laughs.