I’m here to say that I survived Menopause the Musical. And I’m a guy.

There I was Wednesday night at the Lederer Theatre, one of a handful of males in a sea of cheering women watching a cast of four belt out anthems to hot flashes and night sweats. As my female companion said, it was a like a pajama party that might have been thrown by the Golden Girls, a chance for some middle-aged girl talk about sleepless nights and weight gain.

The premise of this 90-minute show is pretty basic. Four archetypal women from different walks of life meet at a Bloomingdale’s lingerie sale and begin talking about “the change,” finding they have a lot more in common than they thought. As the show unfolds, the women pop up at various floors in the department store telling their stories.

There is the professional woman who is married to her job, the ex-hippie who occasionally drifts off into a post-1960s haze, the Iowa housewife who seems to be the only one with a man in her life, and the self-absorbed soap star who dreads every new wrinkle.

But it’s the songs (sung to canned instrumentals) that carry the show, retrofitted hits from the ’60s and ’70s that use fresh lyrics from book writer Jeanie Linders. “My Guy,” for example, becomes “My Thighs,” as in everything “sticks like glue to my thighs.”

Let’s just say that it’s a show that brings new meaning to the term “good vibrations,” as the cast turns The Beach Boys classic into a serenade about sex toys.

Once you understand the show’s a parody, there’s not much else to savor, other than wait for the next reworked song. After a while, the humor wears a little thin.

But as one of the producers of the show has said, this is not Shakespeare. It is in fact the height of silliness, a night of sheer entertainment that makes you wonder what’s on the minds of the average middle-aged American woman these days. Is there no more substantial subject to rally around?

But certain women seem to feel the need to belong to this club, for a naughty girls’ night out when fans can forget their troubles and kick back a bit. It’s something of a phenom that attracts a very specific audience, but an audience that loves what it sees. Fall outside that demographic and you might feel a little lost. Imagine being a guy, for example, and taking your wife to a musical about erectile dysfunction.

Organizers have done all they can, in fact, to make sure women feel included, just like the legions of groupies that adore the Vagina Monologues. At the start of the show, women strolled through the aisles selling hot-flash fans for a buck to raise money for ovarian cancer research. And in the end, the audience was invited on stage to strut their stuff with the cast.

It should also be noted that opening night was sold out and the two-month run is doing “amazingly well,” said Trinity Rep spokeswoman Marilyn Busch. (Even though the show is at the Lederer Theatre, home of Trinity Rep, it is being produced by Florida’s GFour Productions.)

Not all the humor is about the change, however. There are a lot of references to just getting on in years, like the gag when Barbara Pinolini’s Earth Mother has trouble reading a menu. She squints, she glares and keeps pushing the menu further and further from her face, until she hands it off to Cherie Price’s Soap Star, who holds the page about 12 feet away until Pinolini can finally make it out.

And memory lapses turn up as the subject of songs. Fredena J. Williams, the business woman, tells of being able to remember the lyrics to every ’60s song she ever heard, but can’t remember what she had for dinner the night before.

Probably the gag that got the biggest laugh, though, was when Carolynne Warren’s Iowa Housewife tries to squeeze into a tiny black-lace negligee and has to stretch and yank to get anywhere — sort of like a bad Benny Hill routine. But the more she struggled the harder the audience laughed.

Williams, actually, was the most entertaining member of the lot, someone with a brassy voice and a lot of presence. And she does a mean Tina Turner impersonation. But from there the singing went down hill a bit, making for just passable renditions of songs.

Menopause the Musical runs though Aug. 2 at Trinity Rep, 201 Washington St., Providence. Tickets are $45. Call (401) 351-4242.

cgray@projo.com