Kathryn Lounsbery & Amy Turner

The theatre theorist Paul Auslander once offered an explanation for the frequent disconnect between female comedians and their male audience members:  Men often distrust such performers, he said, because of an “unconscious fear that the ultimate joke will be the size of their sexual apparatus.”  But in That’s What She Said, a cabaret-style satire of and tribute to lesbian stereotypes that has returned to The New Conservatory Theatre Center, the ultimate joke is … the absence of any “That’s What She Said” jokes. This show is about women, lesbian women, exclusively. Yet vocalist Amy Turner and pianist/vocalist Kathryn Lounsbery never lose sight of their broader audience. Jogging onstage to the tune of a game show theme song, sporting polyester track jackets and metallic sneakers, the duo introduce themselves with a flight attendant’s safety briefing: The lesbian stereotypes you are about to encounter are absurd, they seem to say -- almost as much as our overzealous embrace of them.

Their opening number, the disco-influenced “Lesbian ClichĂ© Song,” sets us up for an evening of self-parody, but it also gets the more obvious jokes out of the way (as in, “Majoring in women’s studies/PE teachers are my buddies”), so that a deeper investigation of what it means to be a young lesbian in America can begin: How do you overcome biology in same-sex love-making? Who arbitrates the friend/lover divide in close-knit lesbian social groups? How do you navigate a lesbian matchmaking website? A gayborhood? How is gender studies to gain academic legitimacy when some scholars create theories of femininity by relating Eleanor Roosevelt to Peppermint Patty? 

It is as lyricists, addressing these questions with clever rhymes and one-liners in song, sketch comedy dialogues and melodramatic monologues, that Turner and Lounsbery shine. Their dialogue is fast-paced; their punch lines impeccably placed; their set list diverse and thoughtfully arranged.  That’s What She Said could be performed in a comedy club or a cabaret club, and indeed it has, but the duo’s showmanship lends itself to the theatre; their quick-flying rapport might get lost in a venue with more distractions.

As comedic actresses, Turner and Lounsbery feign wide-eyed earnestness, accompanied by self-referential pantomime and choreography that uses every move shy of jazz fingers. As musicians, they do fine work in a variety of styles - country ballads, The Carpenters, Gilbert and Sullivan - but they find their home in jazz, which suits the wispier areas of Turner’s range and Lounsbery’s minimalist instrumentals.

Unfortunately, they seem to take themselves most seriously as musicians only in their two serious songs. “Why is my right wrong,” a poignant ballad written in response to Proposition 8, showcases Lounsbery’s most passionate and dynamic playing. In “Drink Her In,” the only love song, Turner sustains notes with a soft vibrato that makes the narrator’s desire palpable. Furthermore, in a show that challenges stereotypes from curtain to curtain, this ballad reminds us that simply singing a love song about a member of the same sex is still a subversive act. In this unfeigned earnestness, “Drink Her In” suggests another longing: one for a world in which non-heteronormative love songs can just be love songs. For now, Turner and Lounsbery pioneer the lesbian comedy cabaret that is also just a comedy cabaret, sexual apparatuses (probably) unscathed.

That’s What She Said continues through May 31 at The New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco.  Tickets ($20 to $28) are available by phone at (415) 861-8972, or online at www.nctcsf.org.