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PROVIDENCE - In the popular off-Broadway show "Menopause The Musical," an actress cites "the silent passage ain't silent anymore."

It aptly sums up changed attitudes about "the change of life."

Given that a musical has been made out of menopausal symptoms - from hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings, "cottage cheese" thighs, expanded waistlines, insomnia and sex - or absence of it - leaving entire audiences of women laughing, is probably saying something in itself.

The show, now at the Chase Theater of the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, is billed as "The Hilarious Celebration of Women and The Change."

While women may not necessarily be singing about menopause - the closing out of reproductive years and ensuing roller-coaster ride of emotions and physical changes - they're no longer talking about it in whispers. It's no longer the days of your mother's menopause, theater-goers at a recent show agreed.

"Change, Change, Change," sung to "Chain of Fools" and "Night Sweatin," sung to Saturday Night Fever tune "Night Fever," are among the complaints, if not to be celebrated, commonly shared among menopausal women.

"I work at Curves and that's what we talk about," said 57-year-old Norma Agostinelli of North Kingstown, R.I., after a recent show.

"Can we relate?" she laughed, along with her sister and two friends. She pointed to the light jacket draped at the back of her seat which she had to discard because she became so flushed during the show.

"So much of it is so true," Shirley McGrath, 65, of Warwick, said of the production which also poked fun at sagging breasts and sex, with a "Good Vibrations" number and a Tina Turner impersonate "What's Love Got To Do With It,"(a second-hand emotion) belted out by actress Fredena Williams.

(Not to mention "The Lions Sleep Tonight" adapted to "My Husband Sleeps At Night," and "Only You.")

"You'd have to go into a store with those nose and glasses on to buy that," Agostinelli's sister Lilyanne Werle of Greenwich, 60, said, noting the odes to sex aides.

Certainly, it's nothing that her mother ever would have talked about, McGrath said. "It's more openly discussed than in my mother's generation."

Memory lapses and a nod to stressors, such as aging parents (Sonny and Cher's "I've Got You Babe," refrain: "Ma, I'm no Babe, Ma"), grown kids, and better-looking days of youth, "Puff, My God I'm Draggin," (to the tune of Puff The Magic Dragon), as well as what actress Carolynne Warren, portraying a housewife from Iowa, referred to as "a pill to eliminate the urge to kill" in hormonal horseplay, struck a chord for those who are going through the transition - or have already been there, done that.

That's because, to a certain extent, said Dr. Kelly McGarry of Women's Health Associates in Providence and associate professor of medicine at Brown University, more women are aware of the symptoms of menopause. McGarry said what shook things up, perhaps, was controversy over estrogen and its potential, not just to ease some symptoms of menopause, but also the ability to cause problems, like blood clots and heart ailments.

McGarry believes that the attention created by that controversy, "led to more woman becoming informed" and to be interested in options.

The tongue-in-cheek "celebration" of what can be a troublesome transition in a woman's life, can sometimes, in its simplified form, seem silly.

"Some women have minimal symptoms - more power to them," said McGarry.

But most women have the same kinds of concerns when it comes to the severity of hot flashes, mood swings, insomnia and other symptoms. While estrogen isn't entirely off the table, McGarry said, the current thinking focuses on "lifestyle modifications," including exercise and a better diet.

In those terms, women are much more savvy than they used to be in at least knowing what they can do, she said.

And there's a serious side, as with any health changes.

"There's a lot of other things that can occur around that time of life," including the stresses of losing parents and the onset of depression symptoms, McGarry said.

"It's a busy time in people's lives and there might be a tendency to attribute everything to menopause," including forgetfulness, which is associated with menopause, but could really just be caused by too many obligations.

Just as important is "not to ignore things," during that time of life, McGarry said. Weight loss, depression and extreme fatigue would merit "further evaluation," she said.

McGarry, who has seen the musical, said "it strikes so many chords for people" and perhaps helps "to refuel discussions about menopause."

"I think there's less of a stigma about it now," she said. "I think I'm often struck about my patients' willingness to share (their experiences with menopause) with other women."

She said while with most women the only celebration with menopause is a cessation of the menstrual cycle, "sometimes it's welcome moving into another chapter" of their lives.

Like the musical, menopause and life in general, can be "unpredictable and funny," McGarry said.

Werle, 60, at the theater with her sister and friends, joined the cast on stage with other audience members to dance to a concluding song, "I Got A New Attitude."

"It's very freeing," she said.

SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at 508-236-0398 or at slahoud@thesunchronicle.com.