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Oct. 4--Judging from her gleaming smile, worthy of a toothpaste commercial, it's the passengers who are in a bad mood, not flight attendant Rene Foss. "Around the World in a Bad Mood" -- first a musical revue, then a book and now a one-woman show -- is her affectionately playful look at the airline industry, from cost-conscious execs to absurdly demanding passengers.
Foss, a second-generation flight attendant, knows what she's talking about. Although she doesn't name her employer of 22 years, it's Northwest. She said after Sunday night's show that she'd be working the next morning, flying to Billings, Mont.
Most of the humor during her antic 75-minute show comes at the expense of passengers. Among the most frequently asked questions (besides "Can I have ...?), according to Foss is, "Are these seats getting smaller?"
"No," she answers cheerfully. "Your asses are getting bigger."
And of pilots. "What's the difference between God and a pilot?" Answer: "God doesn't think he's a pilot." Maybe you've heard that one before. We could also do without any more jokes with the punch line: "The good news is I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance."
Some of the one-liners are projected onto a screen, often too dimly for anyone to make out the words or images. But Foss has no trouble projecting her good-natured skewering of the flying public, especially those in first class. She opens her show by welcoming us aboard WAFTI (We Apologize for the Inconvenience) Airline's Flight 50-50 and performing a safety demonstration ballet set to the lightning-paced "William Tell Overture."
Her costume is a navy-blue flight attendant's uniform: The skirt is shorter than regulation. In one of her more preposterous skits, "Security Game Show," she takes it off during a security screening.
That's the only allusion to airline safety, other than references to equipment malfunctions: "We have one little problem," she says, mimicking the pilot's voice -- "hydraulics." (The line gets a big laugh; it probably wouldn't if we were in the air.) Foss makes no mention of 9/11, as she does in the author's notes at the back of her book; she finished "Around the World in a Bad Mood" on Sept. 6, 2001. She was airborne five mornings later, bound for the West Coast from LaGuardia, when the captain called her into the cockpit to announce the news.
Personally, I was relieved not to hear any more jokes about bottled water and lipstick as contraband. (I flew to London around the time of the most recent terrorist alert.)
Things have changed a lot since Foss' mother was a stewardess in the '50s. For one, they don't serve lobster thermidor anymore. But some things are constant and universal. Anyone who's ever flown commercially can relate to "Around the World." And you're not likely to leave the show in a bad mood.
AROUND THE WORLD IN A BAD MOOD. One-woman show by Rene Foss. Through Oct. 22, Sundays at 7 p.m. at The Stage, 2222 Hewlett Ave., Merrick. Tickets $18. Call 516-868-6400, aroundtheworldinabadmood .com. Seen Sunday.
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Copyright (c) 2006, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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