About the Play:

Apocalyptic Butterflies has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.

Apocalyptic Butterflies is a full-length comedy by Wendy MacLeod. Hank is celebrating another birthday. His father has given him $4000 worth of totem poles, and placed them on his front lawn. His wife has given him a 7-week-old, yet-to-be-named baby girl. His mother has given him an ultimatum – get rid of your girlfriend. All Hank wants is 24 hours of peace and quiet and he's not going to get it. Apocalyptic Butterflies is an offbeat, totally original comedy about finding peace in what already surrounds you.

Apocalyptic Butterflies follows the fraught antics of Hank as he juggles a wife, a mistress, a baby daughter and an unwanted delivery of totem poles. Being a husband and father isn't what Hank had in mind for his 29th birthday. His wife Muriel recently presented him with a baby, and for the time being is withholding her sexual favours. His delightfully eccentric parents have just had $4,000 worth of authentic totem poles dumped on his lawn as a birthday gift. Hank is stressed out. When he leaves coffee grounds in the sink, open war breaks out. Muriel packs off with the baby to indulge herself in a night at a hotel where she can eat every imaginable flavor of ice cream and stretch out in a bed that somebody else has to make. Hank races off to rendezvous with Trudi, a very buxom checkout girl at the local grocery store. She is neurotic about life but casual about sex, especially with married men. In the sexual afterglow (and in one of the play's best scenes) the zanily wise Trudi sets Hank straight about a few things that every married man should know. We meet Hank's parents Francine and Dick, who march to the beat of a very different drum. Francine is surprisingly similar to Trudi in intellect and outlook. She sees the marriage foundering and in one of the more genuinely comic situations wants Hank to dump Trudi. It all comes to a boil when Muriel catches Hank in the arms of Trudi. Muriel screams at Hank; "You come back here so I can leave you!" But as things can't get worse they actually (and miraculously) get better. Hank's infidelity, and the anguish he feels when he is found out, mark a sea change for Hank and Muriel. Only when they face each other without outside influences are they able to discover compassion and reawaken their love. Apocalyptic Butterflies chronicles the lives of self-absorbed characters who realize it takes two to save a marriage.

Apocalyptic Butterflies premiered in 1987 at Yale Repertory Theater, the internationally celebrated professional theater in residence at Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut, and marked the debut of an extraordinary female playwright. It was selected for The Best Women's Stage Monologues  annual anthology and successfully produced in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and London, and in regional theatres across the US. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops (the role of Trudi is a dazzling little gem of character work) and is regularly performed in college theatre productions as a showcase of student talent.

Cast: 3 female, 2 male

What people say:

"MacLeod's characters are true-to-life, only more so. They are deft caricatures who are somehow believable, and they're well suited to spout MacLeod's comic, offbeat one-liners and slightly warped philosophies." — Chicago Reader

"…witty and human comedy of married life…." — Chicago Tribune

"…wild, often uproarious ride into the marital battlefield." — San Francisco Chronicle

"Wendy MacLeod's razor-sharp domestic comedy Apocalyptic Butterflies, is painted in broad strokes, reminiscent of James Thurber's lifelong exploration of the War Between Men and Women." — Los Angeles Times

"…light, funny and absorbing…." — Lambeth Comet (UK)

"Embedded within the witty and often very funny dialogue is a sometimes uneasy treatise on the complications of marriage, family and domestic bliss. It is to MacLeod's credit that she handles these situations with a genuine fondness for her wacky characters, treating them with a kind understanding. The result is a charming, eccentric comedy." — The Chicago Sun-Times

"MacLeod's writing displays a remarkable tenderness for the unhappiness of the latter-day, hinterland male." — The Chicago Tribune

About the Playwright:

Wendy MacLeod is an American playwright. She is Professor of Drama and James Michael playwright-in-residence at her alma mater, Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Best known for the critically acclaimed Women in Jeopardy!, she is the author of some two dozen plays, many informed by what drama critic Kevin Carr called a "spirit of witty and satirical, female-centric humor."