By Barbara & Scott Siegel . . .
Solo Shows: From Prima Facie to Walking With Bubbles
Solo shows are a bitch! They have to be close to brilliant in order to sit through them — yet they are the cheapest, most lucrative form of show you can put on in a theater. They are — note the second sentence above — also the hardest to pull off. If you’ve been a person of the theater for the last several decades, the names you might associate with the great solo shows of the past are John Leguizamo, Lily Tomlin, Eric Bogosian, Whoopie Goldberg, and Spalding Gray, to name just a few.
A successful solo show has, by definition, one absolutely necessary ingredient: a show-stopping performance. Mediocre actors need-not-apply. The second ingredient is almost as important as the first, and that is: the script has got to be killer. A great solo performance in a middling show is actually hard to watch: it can be painful to see an actor dragging a play up a hill. But there is an exception: the play can be so-so if the subject is a hot popular topic. Which brings us to Prima Facie…
Jodie Comer gives a breathless, bravura performance in the English import solo show currently on Broadway at the Golden Theatre. This is a show, written by Suzie Miller, about sexual assault from the perspective of a gifted female barrister who regularly defended men for these alleged crimes and got them off, but who then finds herself a victim of rape and sees, with harrowing self-awareness, how women are treated in the legal system. Does the play tell the truth? Yes. Does the play expose a wrong that needs to be addressed? Yes. Is it good theater? Ah, as a vehicle for Jodie Comer – Yes. But there isn’t anything really dramatic about it; you can see where it’s going almost from the start. And it takes a very long ninety minutes to get there. And how does it end? With a speech about how important it is to change the system. As the old adage goes, if you want to send a message, use Western Union. If it’s a hit, it’s because of Comer and its subject matter; not because it’s a great piece of theater.
But wait, here is something you very rarely see in solo shows: a dramatic musical. For that, alone, it is worthy of mention. The show we’re speaking of is Off-Broadway, currently at the AMT Theater on West 45th Street, titled Walking with Bubbles. The writer and solo performer is Broadway star Jessica Hendy (uniquely the only performer to have starred in both the original Cats on Broadway and in the revival, playing Grizabella in both productions).
The story she tells is based on her own fearful past, involving a marriage that goes wildly off the rails, and how, in the midst of her personal nightmare, she tries to protect and raise her son (nicknamed Bubbles) as a single parent. Plenty of drama and loads of surprises in the story; it is not a run-of-the-mill tale. But what really distinguishes this solo effort are two things: it’s a musical with some really terrific songs written by Brianna Kothari Barnes, and Jessica Hendy sings the living daylights out of them!
Directed by Richard Hess in a no-nonsense style that wisely shies away from over-dramatizing what is, already, a nightmarish tale; he allows the play to lean into its seven musical numbers, letting them be the special effects of the show. The title Walking with Bubbles sounds light and slight, but it is neither. It is a solo show with something to say, like Prima Facie, but it tells its story in a much more original, gripping way.
