The title is intentionally generic. The website is purposely vague. But really, all you need to know about Liz Kingsman’s One Woman Show is this: It’s bloody brilliant.
Okay, here are a few more details: Directed by the late Adam Brace, whose prolific work with comedians includes Alex Edelman’s new-to-Broadway Just for Us, One Woman Show is a show about an actor putting on a show called Wildfowl. Very meta, yes? (Also, as we’ll soon learn: She’s wild! And foul!) The central character drinks to excess, but in a comic way: “What was in that bottle of vodka?” She tends to over-share: “The District line is being particularly erratic today—exactly like my period!” She has a fun-sounding but kinda quirky job—in this case, marketing for a wildlife conservationist charity—that she doesn’t understand; in fact, she’s one keystroke away from inciting an international avian incident. Her boss sees her better than she sees herself: “Hey, you’re not a mess,” explains Dana. “You just want to be seen as one.” At least one love interest comes into play: “There’s a guy—there’s always a guy.” That means she talks about sex whenever possible: Latex gloves? “They remind me of sex. No reason. I just haven’t mentioned it in a while.” And you can count on at least one extended non-missionary sex scene: “The only thing longer than my orgasm is how long it takes me to describe it to you.”
By now, this should all sound vaguely familiar. Kingsman herself has called her piece a parody of one-woman shows, and unless you’ve been living under a rock since 2016, you know one of the pop-culture phenoms she’s targeting. Neither writer-actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge nor Fleabag—the hit one-woman stage show and subsequent two-season TV series—are mentioned by name, but the shadow looms large. Since Waller-Bridge created the self-destructive, self-involved character we drank, cried, and empathized with, messy millennial women have pretty much dominated the entertainment landscape. (Of course, one might argue that Lena Dunham’s dramedy Girls did it first, and was thus ahead of its time. But that’s for another day.) To say nothing of social media: All those drunken escapades and ill-advised shags mean nothing if they’re not subject to morning-after musings broadcast online to innumerable friends, acquaintances, and random strangers. As our anti-heroine muses in a viral-video-ready moment: “Are you happy with your life or are you happy with your likes?”
The woman Kingsman plays—a Manic Pixie Dream Girl for the TikTok era—is clearly a descendant of Fleabag. Her black-and-white striped shirt and black jumpsuit even recalls one that Waller-Bridge wore during a season 2 Hot Priest scene. But One Woman Show is entirely Kingsman’s own, a razor-sharp, 100-proof satire that thumbs its nose at the establishment, skewering the media’s perceptions of women (“They still haven’t decided which woman is going to be successful this year”), tired TV tropes, and theater itself. We’re here to celebrate and amplify women’s voices, right? “Sorry to interrupt,” booms Nick, her tour manager, over the loudspeaker. Without missing a beat, Kingsman replies: “That’s okay I’m used to it.”
And if you’re still not convinced, I have two words for you: interpretative dance. Friends, it simply must be seen to be believed.
One Woman Show opened June 21, 2023, at the Greenwich House Theater and runs through Aug. 11. Tickets and information: onewomanshownyc.com
