Flying Solo

As a child, I could never understand the second line of The Battle Hymn of the Republic: "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." Why not? I liked grapes. And the two most frequently heard references to food back then were "Eat your vegetables!" and "There are starving children in India who would be grateful for that food!"

The other parental justification that never made much sense to me was "It's good for you -- it builds character." As an adolescent, one rarely feels a pressing need to build a character, especially if one has already built close relationships with a coterie of imaginary friends. But later in life, whether one chooses to write fiction or become an actor, observing the people who cross one's path can provide a never-ending source of inspiration.

In recent months I've grown increasingly fond of the "CharactersWelcomeUCB" YouTube channel, which showcases performances by comedy actors at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre Hell's Kitchen in New York. The following videos offer some stunning examples of their work.










As a person attends more and more fringe festivals, one experiences a wide range of monologues. Some feature actors like Dan Hoyle, whose journalistic skills, gift with voices, and shapeshifting talents allow him to completely disappear into the characters he inhabits. Others may follow an individual's journey to foreign lands, through a tortured family history, or in search of enlightenment.

Over years of watching such performances it becomes easy to identify the artists who are most at ease with their material, whose writing is strong enough to sustain a 60 to 90-minute-long monologue, and whose storytelling skills can transform their presentation to the point where the work they are doing in front of a live audience seems both spontaneous and effortless. In other instances, a monologist's performance can suffer from improper pacing of their narrative as well as the use of their physical props. This became especially obvious during the 2020 Playground Solo Performance Festival.

* * * * * * * * *

There's no doubt in my mind that Tallisha Toliver is a powerful performer with interesting stories to tell. Standing 6'2" tall, she takes the stage like an African American Amazon who describes herself as follows:

"No, I don't play basketball (although I played mandatory high school basketball). I have exactly one mini-me who exited from the birth canal, but there are others who I claim as my own. There is no ring on my left hand, but I am not opposed to the idea of accepting one. I have a diva dog and virtual cats on my phone. I have a tendency to be a mite bit silly and, in case you were unaware, awesome ends in me."

Toliver's monologue entitled Sir, I’m Sorry, Ma’am! deals with her life as a single mother, racial profiling, mistaken gender identity, and the deal breakers she has encountered on the dating scene. An outspoken math teacher, she is acutely aware of some of the challenges facing children in today's education system. As you can see in the following clip, Toliver is adept at creating characters, performing in different voices, and getting her points across to an audience.


Many monologists are careful to schedule brief interruptions in their performance for a quick drink of water, change of costume or something else that will indicate their transition to another character or scene. In Sir, I’m Sorry, Ma’am! Toliver performs before a table on which a half dozen wigs are lined up atop wig stands. Each time she stops to remove one wig and don another for a character change, her monologue experiences a noticeable loss of momentum.

A larger problem, however, is that by her third wig change, the audience is cued to anticipate how many more characters remain to be seen and how much time is left to her performance. Should that make a difference? That depends upon the performer. Someone as gifted as Toliver might not have realized how her props (while enhancing her monologue) may also subtly handicap her presentation.

* * * * * * * * *

A 60-minute monologue by Houston Robertson ran into a similar problem through no fault of the writing, but rather a quirk in the presentation.
A retired human resources professional who quit her job at the age of 47 to become Ribbons The Clown (as well as a writer and motivational speaker), Robertson stresses that, ever since her senior year in high school, she has always wanted to be onstage. "It just felt like I belonged onstage, but good girls didn’t go into theater in 1954. One of the freedoms of my aging has been to discover that dreams may wrinkle but to unfold once again."

The Story of a Nice White Lady: Nice is a Four Letter Word looks back on the 83-year-old Robertson's life as a series of consciousness-raising events that began at an early age. Raised by a mother who seemed to have no racial biases, Houston encountered various kinds of prejudice in churches and book groups as well as during the 2017 Women's March in Washington, D.C. As she continued to mature and evolve, parts of her life experience became "curiouser and curiouser."

Houston Robertson

Robertson's monologue has been nurtured by Don Reed and Mark Kenward, two theatre artists with a wealth of stage experience. As you'll notice in the following clip, she frames much of her monologue as a storytelling session for children. Carefully choreographed shifts in her narrative take place as she manipulates her shawl and uses a large children's book as a prop. Despite some wonderful writing, these moments (as well as numerous repetitions of a song instructing people to "Remember, Remember") similarly weaken the momentum of Houston's performance.

* * * * * * * * *

Of the four monologues I saw during this year's festival, the most delightful surprise was Christopher Magee's deliciously mesmerizing A Kink In The Hose. Magee is one of the co-founders of a local group called The Moonrisers, whose mission statement reads as follows:

"Moonrisers is dedicated to creating new works featuring the bizarre, the magical, and the surreal, that joyously celebrate escapism and embrace comedy of the absurd. To never linger overlong on a success but hurtle forward with new, exciting projects. To plant a seed of levity in our audience that can be carried and shared with others, in abundance. The Moonrisers seek to celebrate the Bay Area’s vibrant theater community and draw audiences out of the ordinary and into a magical world, just outside of their awareness, maybe missed or forgotten. To demonstrate that if looked for, if sought after, the world reveals phantasms, waking dreams, and fairy tales."

Poster art for A Kink in the Hose

Slowly walking onto the stage while clad in a shiny gold deep-sea diver's outfit, Magee makes one of the best entrances I've seen in years. Is he a household aquarium's action figure come to life? Not by a long shot. As footage taken in a salt-water aquarium whose residents include hammerhead and whale sharks comes into focus on the screen behind Magee, he begins to address the audience in a lilting Scandinavian accent. Far less animated than the Swedish Chef from The Muppet Show, Magee (who also entertains at children's parties) speaks softly and carries a big shtick.

Christopher Magee in a scene from A Kink in the Hose

Whether discussing the history of the island where his character lives (a place whose human and ovine occupants routinely fall over cliff edges and drop to their death), describing the various kinds of fish he observes (and their somewhat ridiculous names) as he descends further into the fjord's icy waters, or lying down on the stage floor to watch a tiny crustacean knock on the door of a potential date's home in pursuit of some hot crab romance, Magee sticks to a very calm performance style encased in a shimmering coat of magical realism. He never shouts (the audience must lean in to catch every word) and, if people are lucky enough to hear everything he says, they soon realize that some of what he is saying is the sweetest kind of nonsense imaginable.

As the light from the sun fades away and the footage of fish disappears, Magee runs into a potential emergency with his air supply, but eventually manages to avert sudden death. By this time, his audience has so thoroughly bought into this make-believe journey that they would follow Magee anywhere -- which is exactly when he announces that he's going to leave them and let them find their way back to the surface.

In today's world, it's rare to encounter a performance whose strongest asset may be its sweet and lovably naive charm. I tip my hat to Magee (pictured below in makeup for another show) to honor the quality of his writing, the beauty of his imagination, and the hilarious (yet always gentle) manner in which he shares his story with the audience. An actor with such a stunning artistic vision is definitely a talent to watch.