“Finding the Comedy in Life!” is what Leslie Seiler wanted to do when she began to write Trapped in Taffeta, a satirical look at the beauty and the beasts of weddings.
“When I first sat down to write Trapped in Taffeta, I wanted to write a piece of theatre by getting up on my feet and improvising, creating and then writing it down. I had to start with something on the paper but it was always my hope that the script would change as I discovered things about the characters that I couldn’t possibly have known just by writing them down.”
Martha Newbert is at her 17th wedding, as a bridesmaid, where she has just missed the bouquet for the 17th time. She is preparing to make her 17th toast to the bride and dreading the moment the DJ will play “YMCA” for the 17th time. She sees the seemingly happy world around her, but isn’t truly happy herself. Images of the people who have made her bridesmaid duties a heaven and more importantly, a hell, race through her mind as she steps up to take the microphone and with a little provocation from a cocky MC, Martha decides to tell this crowd, once and for all, what being a bridesmaid is really all about.
Trapped in Taffeta was the recipient of the 2006 Canadian Comedy Award for One Person Show. The awards are an artist driven recognition, with a voting membership of 18,000, including members of ACTRA, Canadian Actor’s Equity Association, The Directors Guild of Canada, Writers Guild of Canada and The Comedy Association: including Yuk Yuk’s, Second City and Just for Laughs.
Review Excerpt:
Trapped in Taffeta was reviewed in Eye.net, where it received 3 stars.
“It’s Seiler’s astonishing liveliness and endurance that ultimately carry the relatively straightforward concept. The show opens with Seiler doing push-ups to the Rocky theme, training for the bouquet catch, and by the end, when her mauve bridesmaid’s gown is almost entirely soaked through with sweat, the visual evidence is irrefutable: Seiler’s the BTO of wedding comedy, the hardest-working woman in the bridal party.”