Philly Fringe 2025: The Lemonade Stand presents Julia VanderVeen’s Dentata

VanderVeen’s stellar performance held both the brilliance and imagination and also the physical artistry to create and carry out the kind of theater piece that you don’t quickly forget. Almost two days later, I’m contemplating how she used her physical comedy skills, sharp writing, and comic timing to lead us through a powerful encounter with women’s sexual and emotional power.

From Betsy to Odysseus

The show began by immediately breaking the fourth wall. Betsy, an aging beauty pageant hopeful, in her platform shoes and sparkly blond wig, met us as we were taking our seats and settling in, making sure we were all comfortable. (One woman in the audience said she needed a beer, and Betsy encouraged a man sitting near her to go buy her one—which he immediately did). Betsy became a recurring character through the show, sharing her desires and confusions (about driving, sex, and other basic life skills) with us.

In between Betsy’s appearances, VanderVeen used quick costume changes to transform and lead us into a surreal-mythical journey where we met Odysseus and the Sirens whose voices terrified his sailors; a French sex therapist who engaged an audience member in pointing to her clitoris, witches spouting out-of-context Shakespeare on the female condition (“Frailty, thy name is woman”), the teenage Medusa and finally, a giant operatic Vulva puppet who spewed out the Schulkyll River.

Female ferocity

VanderVeen’s writing is as fresh as her performing. None of the material felt cliche or tired; she approached her characters with a great balance of rage and vulnerability. She is a terrific physical comedian, invoking the pure elastic skills and varied facial expressions of Carol Burnett or Kate McKinnon, and part of the excitement that she builds through the show is a sense of curiosity and wonder about who is going to appear next.

Though minimal in terms of set design, Dentata was still a highly visual show incorporating puppets (designed by Eva Lansberry and made by Scottie Rowell), wardrobe (Mae Merkle), and lights (AJ Bloomfield). These elements created a playful back-and-forth with Betsy the hopeful beauty queen, becoming an integral part of the show.

Jess Lazar directs and Lucy Smith is credited as ‘”Show Doula.” With any solo show, an outside eye can make all of the difference in executing what begins in the writer/performer’s imagination. Thanks to great direction, this wild, wonderful show comes to us fully alive, fully formed.

At the end of the performance, Betsy returns to poignantly and hilariously share the song she’s written for the talent portion of the pageant, playing her own version of a feminist manifesto from a tiny toy piano (song written by Jackson Sturkey). While she will never go on to win a pageant, she lives triumphantly in Dentata’s rich expression of female ferocity: joyful, thoughtful, memorable, and brave.