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Lily the One-Woman Wonder
| Article
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10667 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1986 |
488 Words |
| Author
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Jeff Church
Jeff Church is a playwright-in-residence at The John F.
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Programs for Children
and Youth. |
In recent years, Broadway has been sadly in need of a hit show. Theatergoers, your messiah has arrived. Lily Tomlin and her potpourri of entirely new characters gives a gratifying evening of theater. The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe will soon be a very hot ticket indeed.
Gone are the days in which Ms. Tomlin snapped her brassiere strap and sang out "One ringy-dingy" from a telephone switchboard. Instead we receive a collection of characters ranging from Edie, a gravel-voiced feminist (Ms. Tomlin's most extreme transformation), to Angus Angst, a punk new wave runaway (who's story seems somewhat extraneous when it is all said and done).
Written and directed by Ms. Tomlin's longtime friend and associate, Jane Wagner, the two have some very funny things to say about life when told from the point of view of people both like and unlike ourselves. In Chrissy, the light-headed aerobics devotee, the production gives us a prototype of someone we have inevitably met in the course of our life. Then, in contrast, we are given Trudy, the bag lady we have surely seen but with whom we've never spoken (until now). She tells us her view of some very wonderful and true things she has observed while on this planet and then negates it all by saying, "But what do I know? I'm crazy…"
Search is an impressive display. The show, a modern-day history of attitudes and trends, is quite stunning in its portrayal, especially considering that there are no costume changes. Aided by a reverberating rocket of sound effects, Tomlin effortlessly leaps into character after character.
That is not to say the production is without flaws. The first act is lengthy and does not posses the soul of the rather short but solid second act where the Tomlin-Wagner team guides us toward subjects they seem to intensely know, as opposed to the lifestyles at which they merely seem content to poke in the first part of the evening.
Yet the payoff comes--in the heart of the second act--when a tightly constructed one-act play occurs and presents itself neatly within the whole. Tomlin wins us with a woman's life reflection on herself and the people she has known over a ten-year period. Finally, when one would think the play could go no further, it is delicately tied up and packaged with a unique coming together of all of the characters.
Best of all, however,
...
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