Sister WonderWoman at the Silo Theatre

By SUSAN BUDD

Remember the 80s, when women wore massive shoulder pads, had seriously big hair and were, or at least tried to be, Wonder Women?

It was when Wonder Woman, in Aaron Spelling's simple-minded TV series, did a post-feminist Superwoman change from uptight, dowdy, bespectacled secretary to the svelte curves and tumbling tresses of glorious, star-spangled womanhood.

Josie Ryan has transformed the actress Lynda Carter to another dimension, in which she is named Rhonda. And she is Rhonda 20 years down the track, after relationships gone bad and so much substance abuse that, as she brightly remarks, "Me and Carrie Fisher should have applied for season passes to Betty Ford".

The body within the too-tight fitting costume is not as taut as it was once, but the smile is still resolutely wide, even as she fends off fans still drooling over her Playboy centrefold while acting as hostess to a convention for stars of old science-fiction movies.

Her sister Sylvie has even bigger problems. She will never be Miss World USA but is forced, with fat lasting long beyond the puppy stage, to stay in Phoenix, Arizona in the deep, dark shadow of her sister's fame. Her sister even determines her sex life.

Sylvie is picked up when Rhonda is famous, and dropped when she disappears from the small screen. After her father's constant dietary nagging, her sense of self is so hazy that she allows her frightful bass guitarist boyfriend to use her as a blank slate to receive his imprimatur.

Ryan's script and performance are sharply ironic, but not so smart as to avoid pathos. She reveals the suffering that underlies sibling rivalry and disappointed hopes while mocking those very emotions.

Michael Hurst's production uses the same qualities to great dramatic effect, particularly in the scene of Rhonda's pregnancy when her unborn child performs a whirling dance. It is clever, funny and very sad.