The fallout from COVID keeps being discovered. The most recent is the reason for the Solo Fest at Bridge Street Theatre in Catskill. When I attended “Help! I’m Trapped in a One-Woman Show” on Sunday, March 16, co-founder Steven Patterson told me the reason they created the festival was the abundance of one person shows available because actors wrote them while in isolation during COVID.
Clearly, there was doubt about when traditional plays with casts ranging from 4 to 24 people might ever resume. The solution for an actor to possibly earn a living was a one-person show. Too, it is likely many such shows were written just for the reason of keeping the brain functioning on a creative level. For those reasons, what might be called the COVID-genre can be work that is extremely personal.
It sure is true for “Help! I’m Trapped in a One-Woman Show.” Actress Kate Skinner uses the format to tell amusing stories about her adventures as an attractive and vital woman of 70 entering the world of dating apps.
Her dates are humorous, but also sensitive experiences. Skinner does not belittle the sincere people she meets on line. She recognizes their incompatibilities and through the process learns a lot about herself.
What becomes clear is the emotional vulnerability of a woman who knows she longs to love and be loved by a person with the same interests as herself.
However, she also knows she is highly unlikely to find the deep love she had with her deceased husband. They met when both were cast on an episode of “Law & Order”, and she pursued him until he caught her.
The show was promoted as being about her dating experiences, but it’s really about facing the future without losing the past. Skinner is at her best when she describes her love for her late-husband. Indeed, it was difficult to feel connected with her until she described their courtship and marriage.
Indeed, I suspect the work would have been stronger, the dates more funny and her awkwardness more understandable were romance between her and her husband detailed earlier in the piece. Nonetheless, it is a pleasant 70-minute peek into the pursuit of continuing life at a certain age.
Next week, March 28-30 is also a personal work, but in a totally different way. Performed by Erika Knight, the great-great granddaughter of artist Ralph Albert Blakelock, she tells the story of an artist whose work becomes valuable and his family exploited while he sits in an asylum for the mentally ill.
Blakelock’s story is reminiscent of that of Vincent Van Gogh. He was a respected artist of the Hudson River School of painting. His work was admired and sold well. As his mind deteriorated, his art became darker and more abstract.
Strangely, once committed, it became apparent that the value of his existing work would rise in value. Art speculators bid on his work and in 1913 and 1916 his work sold for the highest price ever for a living American artist.
However, the family was deprived of his estate and lived a terrible life as Blakelock’s works became arguably the most coveted of the day.
“Ghost Dance” tells the history of the artist, but it is also a personal work that speaks of Blakelock’s life having. generational effects on his family. She discusses what they called the Blakelock curse. which said anyone in the family interested in the arts would go mad.
It’s short notice, but at 2 pm today, “O Time” plays at the theater. Written and performed by David Zellnik, it is called “part memoir, part mystery.”
It describes the experience of bringing his Off-Broadway show “Yanks” to Brazil in 2017. “Yanks” is a story about gays in the military during WW II. In Brazil it was produced by a passionately brilliant 26-year old theater-maker, George Luis. Two years later Luis mysteriously died of what was termed “sudden bacterial infection.”
Zellnik returned to Brazil for the memorial and comes to suspect the facts about Luis’s death were not fully revealed. He investigates the death and makes some scary discoveries about truth, fear, and his personal interest in Luis’ story.
Three one-person shows, three remarkable stories. Sometime the theater adage “less is more” is very true. For information on the SoloFest 2025 go to bridgestreettheatre.org
Bob Goepfert is theater reviewer for the Troy Record.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.
