If I were to tell you that the new show at the Minetta Lane Theatre can be described, in the lead performer’s own words, as “a middle-aged white woman sings songs and talks about her life,” you’d probably not be terribly excited. But when that middle-aged white woman is Laura Benanti, that’s a different story. In her hilarious evening being presented under the auspices of Audible, the multi-talented performer who’s appeared in no less than eleven Broadway show taps into her inner comedian with giddy abandon. She proves that the show’s title, Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares, is an oxymoron.
Unlike her cabaret and concert appearances, the show directed by Annie Tippe (Octet, Ghost Quartet) is an autobiographical comedic monologue, with just a handful of amusing original songs composed by Benanti and Todd Almond, the latter also playing piano and acting as genial straight man. While Benanti’s comic chops have always been evident — just check out her devastatingly hilarious Melania Trump impression on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — the evening is a revelation. Who knew that beneath that gorgeous exterior and killer soprano voice lay the soul of a vintage Borscht Belt comic?
Accompanied both literally and figuratively by her “Inner Demons” (personified by back-up singers Barrie Lobo McLain and Chelsea Lee Williams, who gleefully embody their roles), Benanti delivers a deeply personal, self-deprecating account of her life and career, the latter of which includes her progression from Broadway ingenue starring in such musicals as The Sound of Music and Into the Woods to “recovering ingenue.” Along the way, she talks with embarrassment about her three marriages, with pride about her two young daughters, and with bemusement about her vagina, which she describes in terms ranging from “portal to greatness” to “Gandalf” (you’ll have to see the show to understand why).
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Her anecdotes, delivered with uproarious one-liners and killer comic timing, consistently make her the butt of the joke, which only makes her more endearing. Such as being propositioned by a big-shot Broadway producer when she was still a teenager at the beginning of her career, which she handled, on the sage advice of her mother, in a uniquely self-humiliating way. Or her innate tendency toward people pleasing, which led to her breaking her neck doing an ill-advised pratfall during the run of Into the Woods. Or being touched to be gifted a Cinderella toothbrush by an early boyfriend, only to discover that he had a stash of them in his bathroom cabinet. Or her embarrassing encounter with a marriage bureau clerk at City Hall who insisted that she deliver proof of her previous two divorces, which Benanti describes as her “divorce awards.”
“I only tell you this so you’ll feel bad for me,” the performer admits at one point, and it’s a testament to the raw honesty of her show that you fully believe her and still laugh. Whether talking about her difficulties with motherhood, her perimenopause, or performing her first on-camera nude scene with a much younger actor, Benanti so consistently makes herself the butt of the joke that you only find yourself adoring her even more. She makes mortification seem elegant.
Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares opened May 12, 2024, at the Minetta Lane Theatre and runs through June 2. Tickets and information: audible.com
