""Carrying on in public like that? You're just a bunch of Eleanor Roosevelts!" grumbles a curmudgeonly old guy performed by actor Paul Mortimer, who juggles several small roles. He has just entered Mr. Pete's soda shop the last year of World War II when he begins carping at the vivacious women gathered around the table sipping their malts and milkshakes."
""Did he mean to insult us?" sing the young women, laughing at his attempted cutting remark. These young women are helping with the war effort - though there's forever a person or two who argues that women working in the effort to win the war are doing the "Eleanor Roosevelt thing." This is a man's world after all, and shouldn't they be staying home and baking cookies while their husbands, brothers and beaux are overseas fighting for freedom and democracy?"
The Eleanors follows vivacious young women who gather in Mr. Pete's soda shop during the last year of World War II while contributing to the war effort. Characters banter, sing American Songbook standards, swing dance, and confront expectations that women belong at home baking cookies while men fight overseas. Jodi Goble based the piece on her grandparents' wartime experiences and layers sly humor, historic references, and an Andrews Sisters–like trio called the Ferry Sisters. The work premiered at the Savannah Voice Festival and received a West Coast staging at Portland State University's Lincoln Hall Studio Theater.
Read at Oregon ArtsWatch * Arts & Culture News
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