Betty and Joan (AKA Sue Galloway and Julie Klausner), keepers of the Enchanted Patio, are back after a thirty-year hiatus, with Free to be Friends, a pro-feminst, anti-male, anti-owl, pro-yoga, anti-macrame afternoon television show that's fun for the whole family. The CC Insider caught up with them between acoustic protest songs.
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Hi, Betty and Joan. Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed for the Comedy Central Insider. Your show, Free to be Friends, which was originally presented in an extended run at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, has been accepted into the New York International Fringe Festival. That must feel nice. How nice does that feel?

Joan: Wonderful! Like the sensation of hairy legs against the inside of wide-leg corduroy pants.
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Betty: It feels nicer than a cruise to the South Pacific on a ship full of Merchant Marines!

So, Free to be Friends features two girls, was written by two girls, and was directed by a girl. Did you ever feel the need to ask a man for help in putting this show together? Or were you trying to prove that girls can do anything almost as good as a man?

Betty: I think Joan says that we do everything better than men, but she's not the one who has to get on the ladder. Several times I tried to phone men for help with the show, and Joan was really all for it, but it turned out our phone line had been cut by a roving band of Alan Alda detractors, as evidenced by a card that Joan found at the scene of the crime to that effect -- it said "AAA," which Joan said means Alan Alda Abhorers, not to be confused with the Alan Alda Arborers club, who plant trees in his honor and also if your car breaks down they come and tow it. (I am a member! But they haven't sent me out with a gas can, yet.) Why can't that roving band just leave us and Alan Alda alone? Boy I don't usually get too mad at people but why, why would you hate us and Alan Alda?
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Oh, and I don't think I have anything to prove. I'll let my actions speak for themselves! Ooops, I just fell asleep.
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Joan: It's true, I don't climb any ladders. I believe in a woman's right to delegate. As for whatever else Betty was blathering about, let me apologize on her behalf (quietly, so I do not wake her), and add that if you really do want to plant a tree, do it in Israel, and in honor of somebody cedar-worthy, like Janis Ian or Marlo Thomas.

If you don't mind my saying, the two of you are both rather comely lasses. Are there any special men in your lives? Or does the hectic life of a professional playmaker keep the telephone sadly quiet?

Joan: Playmaker is right: I make plenty of play all over the place. We need a tarp! Honestly, though, I am dead serious about the tarp. As for special men, I will concede that I have a very special place in my heart for the Gorton's fisherman. I love his cod. He's the only man I've ever been able to trust.
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Betty: Jeez, I just told you about the telephone! It doesn't work anymore. I keep trying!

Have you considered adding a little T&A to the show, just to keep the audience interested while you go on about your girl stuff? A little nipple does go a long way.

Betty: I usually do yoga completely in the nude, so it is a little hard for me to get in the poses with clothing on. When we discussed doing our show nude, someone at the local affiliate alerted some area businessmen, who tried to switch our shooting venue into a dilapidated one story building on Highway 9 out past the car dealerships, and our shooting schedule to nightly, 1am to 5am. Or is that morning! I get them confused. Anyway, neither of us like to drive at night! So we went for sassy tights in the daytime instead.
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Joan: Yes, Betty and I wear leotards when we do yoga, because as far as I know, if you're wearing anything else, it's not yoga. It's stretching, or sex, or some other way to waste your time. And while I appreciate your assumption, I feel compelled to inform you that my nipples are not small: they are easily the size of dinner plates.

Do you have any special recipes or housecleaning tips you'd like to share with our readers?

Betty: Oh wow, thanks for asking. I love those peanut butter and banana sandwiches. The ingredients are peanut, butter, banana, and sandwich. I am not too good at expressing myself in words, but I am good at cooking.
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As for housecleaning, if your partner starts having vomiting attacks from the cat tranquilizers and switches to horse tranquilizers and then ends up in a major K hole on the floor right in the middle of said vomit, slipping on your popsicle stick rendition of The Battle of Iwo Jima and cutting open one of those really big veins in the neck, the one of the ones that look like they are made of hearts themselves because they are beating so much, it is best to drag her almost-corpse away from the area to be cleaned before flooding it with 8 gallons of Clorox. Did you know that Clorox takes the color out of rugs?
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Joan: See, this is why I stay out of the business of cleaning and cooking. Not interested. I just take a stab at whatever cleaning solution in the house will make me feel the most "forgetty," sprinkle it over some frozen cod, and then go to town. Though usually I find myself passed out over the wheel of the station wagon before I'm actually in town. Maybe I should start taking a bus to town after what I call "snack time."

If you were a tree, what kind would you be?

Betty: Wow, this is great. If I were a tree, I would be the tree I planted in the back yard for Alan Alda. And maybe Alan Alda would hear my tree cries for help and come rescue me and dig up my roots and we would get married and move to Korea and be doctors, but I'd be a tree, so no one could really tell what I was saying or doing, because I would be doing it on another plane of existence, the tree plane, and Alan Alda would love me. What do you mean by what kind? I would be the nice kind!
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Joan: This seems like a Betty question. Listen to her! "Wow, this is great!" Like she's sitting on the floor with a dixie cup full of apple juice, eyeing a chore wheel. Don't ask her too many more questions about herself: the attention makes her giddy, and if she gets hyperactive, I'll have to put out a waterproof cot and hide my clay, which I use to dry out my warts so I can chisel them off. She thinks it's "eating clay," which is frustrating. Oh, good--now she's asleep again. What was the question, though? A tree? I don't know. Probably the kind with a huge ass.

You still have four opportunities to catch Betty and Joan's very, very funny show this time around...

Thirteenth St. Rep Theatre, 50 West 13th Street, New York

* Wednesday, August 16th at 8:30pm

* Thursday, August 17th at 3:30pm

* Friday, August 18th at 4:45pm

* Monday, August 21st at 7pm

(Buy tickets.)

((And read more about them on The Apiary.))