I have to admit — I'm not a fan of the
one-man/woman show genre; they tend to feel
self-indulgent and
solipsistic, and I guess that's part of their charm to connoisseurs.
But I'll make a set of
exceptions to this rule: If a performer has the level of
confidence and self-awareness required to
command the stage without turning it into a
pathos-drenched therapy couch; a story that would simply be
worth telling in any form, from
literary nonfiction to
cocktail conversation; and the
talent to inhabit
multiple personas seamlessly and persuasively — well, what you end up watching isn't a one-person show, but a kind of
magic trick.
What I'm saying is that I know it's a
high standard, but for me, I'm not interested in seeing a show of this type that doesn't make me saying "
Wow!" on the way out.
I was blown away by Yisrael Campbell's
Circumcise Me, about his
multistage conversion from atheist goy to observant Jew and finally to full Orthodoxy. (But I also admit to being something of a
Judeophile, fascinated in the religion, its cultural traditions and its long and deep history.)
But I generally found the late Spaulding Gray's stuff to be insufferable, have never been a fan of Eric Bogosian, and even feel John Leguizamo's shtick is hit and miss at best.
That said, I was riveted by my friend
Natalie Kim's 1WS, which I saw in an early incarnation, running back to back with a fellow actress's monologue under the joint bill
Yo Hot Mamas!. Her deftly performed narrative explored her identity as a
Korean adoptee, and how that identity was shaped by her relationships with her
three moms — her
adoptive mom, her
stepmom (after her parents divorced and remarried), and her
birth mom — and it was hilarious, gripping and heartfelt.
It was also the
first half of a bill
without intermissions, which meant I had no choice but to sit through her colleague's piece about
female sexuality at midlife — which I found
stultifying in all of the worst ways one-person theater can be stultifying. On the one hand, the companion piece made Natalie's piece shine even brighter by contrast. On the other, it was a deadweight way to end the evening, and I desperately considered trying to
escape during the second monologue — even though bolting would have meant
physically crossing the actual performance space. Thankfully, Natalie has retooled and expanded her piece, renaming it
Yo Girl! and ditching the anchor of her former stage partner. Her show just returned from a celebrated run at the
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and with any luck the new remix will get a fresh production here
Stateside sometime soon — it deserves to be seen,
a lot.
In fact, if she
does feel the need to do her show in repertory, there'd be no better fit than to hook up with
Michelle Krusiec, whose 1WS
Made in Taiwan I saw last night at the
Lucille Lortel Theater in the West Village. Michelle, also an
adoptee, similarly tasks herself with exploring the
mom-daughter nexus, though she has somewhat fewer moms than Natalie. Just
one, in fact — but the mom in question is as
vivid a character as I've seen embodied on stage in recent memory.
Krusiec's chameleonic slippage between her own persona and that of her adoptive mother, not to mention her much-abused Polish adoptive father and her mother's gargoylesque friends, is a jaw-dropping act of transformation; the show does have its overwrought moments, but they don't dominate what is otherwise an emotionally balanced, brilliantly written and wonderfully performed 85 minutes of theater. My only quibble: The title of the play is almost a non-sequitur: The show addresses Krusiec's birth (and abandonment, and adoption) in Taiwan in its first few minutes, then never mentions it again. The rest of the 80 minutes of the play take place in and around Krusiec's suburban hometown in Virginia, and focus on the exquisite disaster of her relationship with her mom — a story that's in turns touching, tragic, hilarious and horrific. One wonders why Krusiec didn't give her work a name that better reflects its core themes and tensions; this is a show that anyone who's been a mother or a daughter, or had a mother or daughter, should see, whether you're Taiwanese or not.
Made in Taiwan has three days worth of encore performances left; buy tickets
here, though they're likely to go fast. And as for
Yo Girl!, well, watch this space.
Posted via email from OriginalSpin
