"I am your co-dependent Cassandra of a falling empire," announces Lois Weaver early on in Miss America, the terrific new Split Britches show that she co-created with longtime collaborator Peggy Shaw. The pair established their reputations in the early 1980s by examining butch/femme lesbian dynamics. And while that is not absent from their current work, the duo is now taking a broader look at contemporary politics.

There are some blatantly didactic moments, such as Weaver's outlining of all the "terrorist" acts committed by the United States, inclusive of the annihilation of Native Americans, slavery, and the bombing of civilian targets. But these segments are balanced by more whimsical in[...]