from
Seattle's alternative newspaper
Dear God, thank you for Lauren Weedman.
I confess, Lord, that I had been lost, despairing and listless, because I know that the bombs are about to start falling (Iraq, Israel, somewhere) and that the world is about to end. I have wondered, "Why stay alive?" But now I know there is a reason to be alive, Lord, and that is to see the brilliance that is Lauren Weedman, the funniest woman alive.
I must confess, Lord, that I had never seen Ms. Weedman perform before, and I now heartily regret and repent of this. I hereby vow that I will see every show she ever does again in Seattle, so help me, Lord.
There is so much in Rash to thank you for, Lord. Thank you for the multitude and richness of the human creatures Weedman manifests in this one-woman show--from the ultra-plastic, passive-aggressive TV director to the crotch-grabbing fag music teacher to the ultra-pissed-off-but-oh-so-mellow Buddhist meditation teacher to about 20 others. Thank you also for composer-guitarist David Russell and the band that provides Weedman with an ear-splattering mix of Vegas rock/easy-listening cheese to which she sings, dances and writhes.
Thank you, Father, for forgiving Weedman for her impersonation of the "well-hung" man that may have hit you and yours a bit close to home. But, Lord, do not forgive anyone who does not run out right now and get a ticket to this show.
- REBECCA BROWN The Stranger, Seattle
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from :
Friday, October 25, 2002
FEATURE
'Rash' explores the itch for fame and why we have to scratch it By GIANNI TRUZZI |
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Lauren Weedman got her first taste of the lunacy that fame inspires not under the bright lights of New York but from the blue glow in Seattle. When she was a cast member of the late-night comedy show "Almost Live!" on local television, she and a fellow player would debate where to go for drinks as if they were movie stars. "Oh, we can't go there," she recalls an exchange of faux fabulousness, "we'll be mobbed for autographs!"
It all seems particularly ridiculous to her now that she's getting a taste of the real thing. Since leaving Seattle, where she created several distinctive one-woman shows (among them "Homecoming" and "Amsterdam"), she has garnered national exposure as a correspondent for Comedy Central's "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." The madness that accompanies the bigger spotlight has been eye opening for Weedman. She marvels, "It seems crazy the kind of things I've cared about in the last year."
The insights she gained in that brief time are the inspiration for her new multicharacter performance at the Empty Space. "Rash" is about an itch, the desire for fame and our culture's fetish for celebrity.
Only a sinner truly understands the sin, and Weedman confesses hers freely. She shakes her head at her own ambition-fueled bad behavior during her first year in New York. "When I would get my voice-mail messages," she says, "if it was a relative or a friend, it could wait." Her agent, conversely, got a return call right away. Her attitude was "gotta keep that career going."
When she won her place on "The Daily Show," she says, "I was blissed out of my mind." The popular perception of celebrity, even such a modest kind, became apparent to her. "I was sent flowers and gift baskets from relatives I had never met, and friends from my long-ago past."
That inflated sense of importance, both of the job and of herself, increased the pressure on Weedman. "My first day on the job, every ounce of energy went to keeping it together." Her dream job achieved, she worried about messing it up. "The stakes seem so high, you can't get relativity." She reports breaking down in tears by the audience doors.
Things improved for Weedman over time, and she began to be recognized on the subway. "People would come up and start telling me they were a big fan," she says. "But then they'd tell me they didn't like me at first, that I was getting better, what they hated, or that my attitude with Jon was not so good."
When Weedman first received the Empty Space commission from artistic director Alison Narver, she wasn't sure she should mine a subject so close to her own recent experience. She insists that her solo shows are never about her, even though she draws on her own life. The risk, she acknowledges, was being perceived as "complaining about being on a TV show, poor little princess."
Weedman's initial concern was "will anyone care?" Narver's prodding convinced her to stretch the canvas to explore the way we idolize and react to celebrity and the price that gets paid.
New for Weedman's show is abundant song and dance. In the opening, for example, her character Gwen's high-school dreams of attention burst into an over-the-top musical extravaganza, "like a big Liza Minelli number, where life is fabulous and wonderful," she says. The large amount of music was something she hadn't planned but developed because she enjoyed working with composer and lyricist David Russell. "I can sing," she insists, a little sheepishly, adding, "Sometimes it's for comic effect."
Weedman likes returning to Seattle to develop her latest signature-style show. In New York, she says, "solo shows are known to be especially tedious. They're only considered a showcase, a way to get work." Too many, she says, are somebody's life story, simply told in first person, as with one New York show in which a man sits in a chair and talks about his alcoholism. "To me, that's not a piece of theater. It has to feel like more than being trapped in a monologue that lasts for an hour and a half."
Her own approach is "to challenge myself to do something that could be done by other people." That means performing a character or several characters and making it "more than anecdotes and jokes. It can't just be a scene that's hilarious, it has to serve the story."
She recalls that Oscar Wilde summed it up when he wrote: "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Whether this show about self-involvement can avoid seeming self-involved itself, people are sure to be talking about Weedman's boldness for a while.
from
Friday, November 1, 2002
REVIEW
Is a rash funny? Yes, when it's Lauren Weedman's
By JOE ADCOCK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER THEATER CRITIC
Any rash is nasty. But the "Rash" playing at the Empty Space Theatre is unique. It is both nasty and hilarious, very nasty and very hilarious.
RASH
PLAYWRIGHT: Written and performed by Lauren Weedman
WHERE: Empty Space Theatre,
Writer-performer Lauren Weedman's one-woman show is virulently indelicate. The indelicacy extends to (and beyond) religion, sex, bodily functions, regrettable physical conditions and death.
The hilarity encompasses a high school chorus director with AIDS (yep), a senile grandma, a pretentious Buddhist guru, a strong, silent boyfriend and all manner of show business fools. The prime fool is Weedman's protagonist, Gwen. Gwen is chubby. She is funny. She is desperately ambitious. She wants to be famous for being funny. She claws her way through tacky comedy clubs and finally gets onto TV.
As the very famous and very funny and very unfortunate Oscar Wilde put it, "When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers." To which Gwen might say "amen."
Weedman portrays roughly two dozen characters. Framing her comic vignettes are almost serious insights into the issues that Gwen strives to laugh off. Among these are the weight problem, the gay boyfriend, the panic about choking and the terror of death. When laughing problems off becomes a problem . . . well, then we have a problem.
Inspired helpers assist in Weedman's struggles and triumphs. Director Trip Cullman alternates chaos with eerie calm. Songs by David Russell are marvelously quirky, as are the musical underscorings provided by Russell and three fellow musicians.
Weedman is not a virtuoso vocalist. Alas, some lyrics get lost in hectic chaos. But the chaos itself can be wildly amusing. A scene demonstrating Gwen's mastery of music video lewdness -- and her inability to control her obscene impulses -- is extremely funny and a little scary. But why worry? A microphone can't bring sexual assault charges.
A set by Adam Stockhousen amounts to a room-size assortment of jack-in-the-boxes. The walls suggest postcards from Indiana and New York. They are actually eight panels hinged to allow entrances and exits by objects ranging from a small Buddha to a large rat.
Lighting by Paul Whitaker helps to define locales, including a schoolroom, a meditation hall, a TV studio and a tavern. Choreography by Burton Curtis, all of it nicely executed by Weedman, ranges from Cossack gymnastic to disco orgiastic.
"Rash" is both bizarre and brilliant. Depending upon one's tastes, it could be totally revolting (for a hypothetical someone) or totally exhilarating (for me).