Kate Skinner brings warmth and charisma to the stage in Help! I’m Trapped in a One-Woman Show, a sixty-minute monologue about love, loss, and online dating at the age of seventy.
After losing her husband of seventeen years, Ron McLarty, Skinner embarks on a mission to find out whether she can kiss – and more importantly, love – someone new. Navigating the world of online dating is hard, and she tells every story with a great deal of charm, poking fun at her worst dates and yet still extending empathy even to those she never texted back to set up a second. It gives one the sense of being filled in by a friend on their messy dating life, and the show has an atmosphere of light-hearted gossiping! However, that does not mean it cannot be serious too – when Skinner talks about her late husband there is a definite sense of sadness and the performance becomes an emotive tribute to the couple Skinner was once one-half of.
The ‘One-Woman Show’ in the title is not a reference to the show itself, but rather a term she uses to describe her life as a widow after so long being part of a ‘double act.’ As the show goes on, she weaves her way through the myth of Icarus and the story of the Princess and the Frog only to decide that perhaps she might be okay being alone, just for now – a clever ending that casts the title in a new light.
Skinner herself is an engaging performer, with a sharp wit and a clear talent for storytelling. She is extremely vulnerable onstage – unashamed to shed a tear when speaking about Ron’s passing, and her willingness to share the highs and lows of her marriage and life as a widow is commendable. With a long history on Broadway in various productions including Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Graduate, it is little wonder that Skinner does so well on stage – and it is great to see that, in her first solo show, she is still in complete command over the performance space.
Help! I’m Trapped in a One-Woman Show is humorous, heart-wrenching and heartfelt in equal measure. As my final show of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, I am glad I saw it – and whatever Skinner may do next, I hope she finds new ways to make her one-woman show as fulfilling and life-affirming as this performance was.
