Lauren Weedman

Is doing a one-woman show at the Redcat called Bust. I think there are only a couple more performances. I hope some of you can get to see it. She’s a amazing and unique talent. This is the kind of shit you just don’t get to see a lot of around here. Funny, poignant, satirical and real at the same time. The performance revolves around a mildly self-absorbed, fairly nuerotic character, probably close to Weedman’s caricature of herself, who is both navigating the loopy and more than mildly self-absorded world of Hollywood " filled with characters and subplots that involve familiar personages like her dog-rescuing friend Rachel (hilarious send up) and an editor at Glamour who wants to publsh the true-life account of how Weedman’s character (and one would suspect Weedman herself) lied about being raped during her freshman year in college to get attention, who decides to volunteer at LA’s county jail with a program called Behind Bars. The arc of the story is fairly simple " naive, self-absorbed Hollywood chick discovers things about the bigger world and herself. Weedman is a genius at character, doing everyone from the other volunteers to the innmates, and her writing is razor-sharp. The laughs come from how mercilessly she pillories everyone and everything from the horrifying prison bureacracy to herself, but it’s only hilarious because she’s never cruel or condescending and colors everything with a right and light stroke of humanity. The comedy is driven by character and situation at the highest and most absurd levels. I first saw her in performances with Hassan Christopher’s equally brilliant Company of Strangers dance and performance troupe several years ago. Why this woman isn’t a major star puzzles me. These people inspire and remind you that there are true artists out there doing unique and interesting things in these hyper commercial and often soul-dead times. I wanted to meet her and tell her about my feelings, but after the show she was busy with other people who had feelings too, man.

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