Busting out

The cast of Cleavage — “the real story behind fake breats”
(Photo by Delaney Rain Photography)

‘Cleavage,’ a musical about breast implants, bounces
onto the stage this month
at Theatre Three

Steven Lindsey | Contributing writer
StevenCraigLindsey@gmail.com

Hope you like boob jokes. Because from this point forward, the D cups runneth over. Ahead of the new production of Cleavage (stylized as cleaVage! with the capital V symbolizing the space between two breasts), Dallas Voice caught up with three key people bringing the story to life: writers Dr. Ron Friedman and Lauren Goodenow and the show’s star and beloved local icon, trans actor Lee Walter.

Dallas Voice: Dr. Friedman, let’s start with a little about your surgical career, and then the “Aha!” moment where you decided to write this. Ron Friedman: I’ve been playing piano since I was eight and writing music since I was 10. At some point, I realized that there are a lot of starving artists and not very many starving plastic surgeons. So I decided to go a different direction.

I’ve been doing plastic surgery now for a little over 30 years. And I guess about 20 years ago, we were out at a musical with friends, and one of our friends turned to me and said, “You know, you’re kind of funny. And you do plastic surgery. And you write music. Why don’t you write a plastic surgery musical?”

I actually did write a couple of snippets of songs, but I didn’t have a storyline. I had nowhere to go until 2019, when some friends took us to Hamilton here in Dallas, and then we went to Hamilton again in Chicago because we didn’t understand half the rapping, maybe 70 percent of the rapping.

And while I was watching Hamilton the second time, I thought, “Wait a minute! If this is a musical about America and it’s historic, what could be more American and historic and Texan than silicone implants?”

I kind of went crazy and wrote about 30 songs in a year or so.

So it’s kind of a “write what you know” that transitioned into this. Was it always going to be kind of the historical look at breast implants? Friedman: This story is so weird, and nobody’s told it.
Lauren Goodenow: He’d done so much and had even tried to shop it and talk to people, and everyone said there were really great songs, and it was really funny.

Friedman: Everybody said great idea, songs and lyrics, but your story sucks. And you sound misogynistic, and you need a woman to help you with this. In the middle of COVID, Lauren and I met in an online chat room.

Goodenow: He said, “Hey, I’m writing a story about the origin of breast implants, and I’m looking for a female book writer.” I was like, huh, that’s interesting. So we connected, and I listened to all 30 of his songs. I could see it, but he was telling this real story, and there were no characters that people could relate to.

We need to honor the breast cancer survivor. We also need to talk about the trans story, too, because that is relevant to breast implants. We need to show all sides. We need to be well-rounded.

Friedman: So to speak.

Here come the boob jokes! Friedman: Puns are sort of my disease.

Goodenow: To work together, I told him we’re gonna get rid of some of your songs. We’re gonna write new songs. I’m gonna write characters, and I’m gonna shape this story.

It seems like you complement each other well. My initial reaction with the name, the logo, all this stuff — is that it’s just going to be pure comedy with boob joke after boob joke. But there are some deep moments and real tragedy. How did you find the balance? Friedman: I’ll have to credit Lauren for that one. I mostly am in charge of making it medically real because of my background. I recognize I’m an outsider in musical theater, but I’m definitely an insider in plastic surgery and breast augmentation, having now performed a few thousand of them.

Breast implants started for augmentation purposes, moved on to breast reconstruction purposes and then moved on to trans women, and it’s happened that way historically and chronologically, so it happens the same way in the musical. But rather than talking about it in broad strokes, we talk about it by personifying each of these under a given character.

Goodenow: So Lee’s character, Dee Dee, really serves as our narrator, bringing it all together.

The first implant patient was a dog, for real, right? And so we have a dog, and that dog is with us throughout the show. But we cross decades, right, so there’s a little bit of fun as we’re playing with time.

But Dee Dee is also trying to figure out; she’s learning the history of this, before she makes a decision to have top surgery herself.

Lee Walter: It’s very clever in how it mixes comedy and seriousness. The music is what pulls it all together. Especially within some of the more serious moments, it’s the chef’s kiss.

In the first song, each character is introduced in some way, shape or form — pun intended. But Dee Dee’s there from the beginning as sort of the emcee of the entire show.

How did you find out about the role? Walter: Rebecca Lowrey. I’ve known her forever, and she reached out to me and said, “Hey, I have this show, and I really want you to be a part of it.” I had not read the show. I just immediately said yes because it’s Rebecca, and I respect and love her so much, and I know she always puts her best into everything she does. Then when I finally read the description of the character, I was like, okay, yeah. This is literally following my journey, so I had to get on board with it.

How much of your own journey was already in the character? Walter: I had a discussion with Rebecca via email after reading the script. Because I was a drag queen before I transitioned, I’m trying to not make this character a drag queen — because she’s not. She’s a trans woman.

My struggle with emceeing is I want to go to my natural drag queen place, and that’s not what this is. I need to just drop that persona and be myself, and that’s gonna be a little of a struggle for me.

Goodenow: As a former journalist, I like to tell stories from both sides, so I really try to get perspectives.

Friedman: As a plastic surgeon, I’ve interacted with some trans women, although that’s not a major part of our practice. But I basically started reading lots of stories and tried to figure out the commonalities.

But I have to give Lee credit for inhabiting this role. Rebecca had a cabaret a year or two ago where she had a variety of singers performing, and I was sitting there with my wife in the audience over at Rebecca’s place. And after we, while we heard you sing, Lee, we both looked at each other and said, “How do we get this one?” We didn’t know who you were. We just wanted you to be in the musical.

So, the show has some composite characters and several based on real people. Friedman: Interestingly, we changed the names of all the characters and the breast implant manufacturer. The only name we didn’t change was the stray dog, Esmeralda, and I had a lawyer yesterday say, “Why don’t you change that name?” I said I don’t think the dog’s going to sue us.

How much has the show changed since you first did the full staged production last year? Friedman: I would say the show is probably about 15 percent different from before.

Goodenow: Not different, more like adjusted. We didn’t remove or rewrite full characters.

Friedman: You can just say we adjusted our breasts.

Goodenow: The biggest change really was taking our two opening numbers and turning them into one, and making sure that we were introducing the characters from the start. We needed Dee Dee to have this big opening and have something to say from the get-go.

It sounds like it’s been a great collaboration. Goodenow: You know, we sometimes go back and forth, but it’s because we both care, and we both will land on something that’s better than either of our first suggestions.

Friedman: This is a funny musical, and it’s meant to be hysterical, and there’s all sorts of puns. It would be very easy for characters to become cartoonish, but Lauren has done a good job of avoiding that and building out real, believable people.

It’s great when a show surprises you, and in the middle of singing about breast implants, you have a truly serious moment. I think it’s going to have much more impact. Friedman: And anecdotally, when we did our preview last year, we did it for a breast cancer survivors group called Women Rock, based in Denton. October, not coincidentally, is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and a lot of them were crying during the musical, which I guess wasn’t the emotion I thought we were going to elicit. But I think they felt as if somebody finally understood their story.

Goodenow: The whole goal is to have a range of emotions. A really good musical makes you laugh, cry and all the things. Body positivity, being able to do what you want, reduction or implant. It’s your body; it’s your choice, right? That’s kind of an underlying current.

Friedman: Not coincidentally, there’s a song called “It’s My Choice.”

So, before we run out of time, each of you, sum up what Cleavage is about in a 60-second elevator speech. Friedman: OK, Cleavage is the real story behind fake breasts. It’s based on or inspired by the true events, people, surgeons, patients and the dog that brought about the development of silicone gel implants. We touch upon augmentation, reconstruction, trans surgery, and we do all of this in a humorous but deeply meaningful way that will make audiences think about the musical afterward.

Walter: I’m gonna be completely silly with mine, so please do not hate me for saying this: We have shows about penises. We have shows about vaginas. We do not have a show about breasts. So this is a perfect show about breasts.

So come see the show about breasts. Climb that mountain!

That could be the perfect trilogy: Puppetry of the Penis, The Vagina Monologues and Cleavage. Goodenow: The world is so serious right now and so divided. Let’s bring it together.

Dallas Voice: Goodenow squeezed her breasts together as the exclamation point on her joke, everyone laughed, and the interview concluded as we all said our goodbyes. Or, as I like to say, “Tatas for now!”

Cleavage: The Musical runs from Oct. 15-Nov. 1 at Theatre Three, 2688 Laclede St. Tickets are $20 for the preview on Oct. 15 and $40 for all other shows. CleavageTheMusical.com