Liz Kingsman faces rock bottom in One Woman Show (photo by Joan Marcus)
ONE WOMAN SHOW
Greenwich House Theater
27 Barrow St. at Seventh Ave. South
Tuesday – Sunday through August 11, $67-$109
onewomanshownyc.com
“I’m mocking them for making an elaborate personal vehicle, when this is clearly an elaborate personal vehicle,” Liz Kingsman says in her hilarious and trenchant one-woman show called, well, One Woman Show.
A surprise breakout hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that transferred to the SoHo Theatre and then the West End, earning an Olivier nomination for Best Entertainment or Comedy Play, One Woman Show is making its US debut at Greenwich House Theater through August 11. As the play starts, Kingsman is a nervous actor speaking with her tour manager, Nick, who can be heard on the loudspeaker, about the camera placement for her performance of Wildfowl, which is being recorded live for a Hollywood producer. Kingsman is far more concerned about the filming than the audience at the theater, which she gives short shrift to. It’s an effective opening, especially because it’s actually part of the play; it quickly becomes clear that One Woman Show is about one-woman shows, most specifically Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, itself a riff on confessional presentations that also got its start at the Edinburgh Fringe. Kingsman’s costume even matches a striped shirt and overalls outfit worn by Waller-Bridge in the second season of Fleabag.
The fictionalized Kingsman of Wildfowl works in marketing at a wildlife conservation charity that protects birds; in one of an endless stream of clever inside jokes, birds is British slang for “young women.” A Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Liz has no filter as she discusses her fling with Jared, her intense sexual desire for an “eight-foot-nine” officemate, her relationship with her best friend from university, and her descent into drugs and alcohol, all the while fiddling around with clichés.
“You’re not a mess, you just want to be seen as one,” her Australian boss, Dana, tells her.
Liz Kingsman stands in the dark in razor-sharp parody (photo by Joan Marcus)
Along the way, Liz gets hit by a car, doesn’t know where she’s woken up, and shares vivid memories that would best be forgotten; at these moments, she announces, “I’m having a remember,” as Daniel Carter-Brennan’s lighting signals the start of a flashback. She tackles feminist tropes (“The only thing longer than my orgasm is how long it takes me to describe it to you.”), misogyny (“They still haven’t decided which woman is going to be successful this year.”), social media (“Are you happy with your life or are you happy with your likes?”), and success itself (“I guess I’m just relatable.”).
Every once in a while Nick butts in to talk about problems with the filming. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says, to which she replies, “That’s okay, I’m used to it.” She suggests that they should start all over for the producer, not caring whether the audience wants to sit through the same thing they just saw. We are just pawns in her rise to stardom.
Trying to get her life back together, she heads out to a nightclub, but it’s not exactly a fantasy evening. “You look like you’ve gone clubbing alone, which is basically the lowest a middle class woman can sink,” she admits.
As Waller-Bridge does in Fleabag, Kingsman never hesitates to paint women as real people with real dreams and desires, just like men. “We need more women’s story,” she says, with both sarcasm and truth.
Affectionately directed with tongue-in-cheek humor by Adam Brace (Just for Us, Literally Who Cares?!), One Woman Show is a fabulously funny and sharp-witted seventy minutes that are not afraid to push any envelopes out of its way. Chloe Lamford’s set features a chair at the center, a pair of self-standing cameras on either side, and random plants on the floor. Carter-Brennan’s lighting includes rows of chasing lights and square panels hanging from the ceiling onto which various images are projected. Max Perryment’s sound helps delineate between Wildfowl and One Woman Show, complete with Nick’s interruptions. The choreography, by Joshua Lay, is highlighted by Kingsman’s dancing at the nightclub.
Born in Sydney, Australia, the London-based Kingsman has appeared in such television series as Parlement, Borderline, and Power Monkeys. She didn’t plan on doing a solo show; she was writing a film script when she needed a distraction and came up with it by accident. She might not have been specifically inspired by such solo provocateurs as V (Eve Ensler), Karen Finley, and Lily Tomlin, but she is now entrenched with the current generation of women creators taking agency over their stories, from Waller-Bridge and Lena Dunham to Amy Schumer and Tig Notaro.
“There’s a guy — there’s always a guy,” Kingsman’s Wildfowl character says.
But there doesn’t always have to be, as One Woman Show so cleverly exposes.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]