Paula
Written & Performed by Lizzie Short
Chain Theatre | 312 W 36th St. 4th floor, New York, NY 10018
April 2nd, 6th, 9th & 18th
Theatre festivals are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
The FRIGID Festival kicks off tonight in NYC and approximately 65 shows will run in rep at 5 different venues. Shows will run a bit under an hour. There will be one-acts and bits of longer works in progress; dramas, comedies and musicals.
The festival continues . . .
Paula enters from the dressing room at Marshalls in Boston. She’s a talker. She’s that coworker you have that always has a story. The littlest thing can trigger a story and in this case it’s a beach t-shirt. As Paula tells the story of a simple beach day, you smell the salt air, feel the sun on your skin and sand between your toes. There’s nothing eventful to the story, and somehow that makes it all the more special. But that doesn’t mean you want to hear it when she’s training you how to fold sweaters properly.
There’s something extremely lonely about Paula - like she talks so much at work because she’s alone at home. When she volunteers to finish closing up, she makes an unexpected discovery in the changing room.
When Lizzie Short grabs a chair and brings it forward and sits, it’s clear to see she is no longer Paula. Something in her face has changed ever so subtly, It’s Paula’s daughter.
This is a beautiful, sad story about mothers and daughters. It is the shortest piece I’ve seen so far in the festival, but it doesn’t need to be longer. It’s all there. Short’s script is reason enough to see this show,but her moving performance makes it unmissable!
Click HERE for tickets.
Review by Nicole Jesson.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on April 7th, 2025. All rights reserved.