Brieanna Blizzard works hard to pull of aWay, but the script holds her back.
If Brieanna Blizzard were only the star of aWay, she could bask in the glow of elevating a rather bland script. If she were only the writer, a less vibrant performer could have made things much worse. But unfortunately for her, she’s put pen to paper and trod the boards for this show, the debut production of her new company, Anchor|Red. Virtually all of the credit, or blame, for aWay thus has to go to her. And ultimately, she deserves more of the latter than the former.
In fairness to Blizzard, a successful solo show is a difficult feat for even the most gifted actors. And while she’s no Meryl Streep, her talent is undeniable. She credibly imitates both a teenage girl and a senile old codger of a man, and she even pulls off a decent Teutonic accent. With her sheer verve and gusto, she does a lot with little. But it’s not enough.
To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, aWay is a monologue about nothing. Stuff certainly happens to its nameless narrator over the course of her 80-odd years, but none of it is especially enlightening or novel, nor does it ever coalesce into any real message. The events in the protagonist’s life, from parental divorce, to unrequited love, to a miscarriage, to her husband’s affliction with Alzheimer’s, have already been the subject of countless other dramas, something Blizzard herself seems aware of. As she observes at one point after sleeping with her philosophy professor at age 20, “I can’t even screw up in my own way!”
Such run-of-the-mill screw ups aren’t a deal breaker, but the lack of a compelling take on them is. Part of the problem is Blizzard’s inability to create a convincing voice for her narrative. Regardless of the character’s age in the show, her observations often sound like those of a twentysomething, whether she’s looking forward or back. Her five-year-old self’s embarrassment over being a “pee pants” is realistic enough, but it’s difficult to reconcile with a girl who just eight years later is wryly describing her “über casual” attitude towards a hunky crush. Similarly, when she, as a septuagenarian, observes that “I can’t remember when I started shuffling,” she sounds glib rather than resigned. Wonder how she’d feel if it actually happened to her.
Given her happy-go-lucky attitude, maybe Blizzard would in fact take shuffling in stride. But this easygoing tendency on her part, while endearing, undercuts her monologue’s ostensibly darker moments. At one point, lamenting her elderly husband’s faded memory, she muses: “If you don’t remember us, isn’t it like we never existed at all?” It’s a disturbing possibility, but rather than confront it head-on, Blizzard merely hints that the answer is “No” by happily dancing as “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” blares during the show’s close.
It’s just one example of the various bells and whistles that weaken aWay, rather than strengthen it. Blizzard’s karaoke version of “We Go Together” from Grease is so obviously meant to be off-key, the accompanying music serves little purpose. For that matter, more than a minute of simulated background chatter is hardly necessary to gather that she’s at a cocktail party, and the police sirens that wail whenever she recalls the suicide of her friend become steadily more irritating each time.
“I wish wishes came true,” says Blizzard at one point. It’s a trite yet apt observation. One can only hope that next time out, whether in a self-penned show or someone else’s, she has better material to work with.
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