U CAN HEAL MY LIFE!!
The Third Eye, 30 Arthur St, Te Aro, Wellington
22/03/2018 - 24/03/2018
NZ Fringe Festival 2018 [reviewing supported by WCC]
Production Details
You can heal my life! Men are from Mars, this woman is from Nelson! The church of Scientology told me I was ‘unstable like the titanic’!!! Apparently it’s the best show at the Fringe???
My prefrontal cortex has fully developed apparently and it SUX!!!
Armed with anxiety and a non-refundable deposit on this show, no turning back now so pls come help me sort my life out!!
I’ve read some self-help books and I’m trying some personality tests & basically gonna get life on track so this’ll be fine just you wait!
‘An energizer bunny’ – Pantograph Punch
‘frighteningly present and absolute’ – Pantograph Punch
‘Unstable’ – Scientologist who did personality test on me
‘The funniest Williams’ –EVERYONE
Brought to you by the Nelson representative for the National 2001 Smokefree Speech Comp, 2006-2007 Stage Challenge Comp, Nayland College Lipsync 2007, & part of the team of the 2016 Wellington Theatre Award-Winning ‘A Trial’ & 2017 NZ Fringe Most Colourful show ‘Stoge Chollonge 2006’. This show is sure to be a time.
Kind regards,
Maria Williams
The Third Eye, 30 Arthur Street, Te Aro
Thursday 22 – Sunday 24 March 2018
7:00pm – 7:55pm
Theatre , Solo ,
55 mins
Unabashed, uninhibited, bittersweet
Review by James and Tim Stevenson 23rd Mar 2018
Spontaneous, funny and touching, U Can Heal My Life!! is built on a solid plan – mostly.
The plan is for creator/presenter Maria Williams to take us on a tour of her inspo* books, which have titles like Big Magic, The Woman’s Book of Courage, and the eponymous You can heal your life.
On the way, Williams talks about her life and the reasons why she seeks out books like this. These include her experiences of living with anxiety and not knowing about it, and living with anxiety and knowing about it but being unsure how to get along with it.
As our guide, Williams feels free to go with the flow rather than follow the printed itinerary, aka script. On opening night, the flow covers a lot of ground. The artist’s triad (love your work, get paid for it, learn from it), Catholic guilt, being a competitive extrovert, school and university days, and the challenges of putting on a one-hander Fringe show, are only a sample of the areas visited.
The narrative is nicely broken up with musical interludes, most of which fall into the category of lame popular music that makes you feel good.
Williams’ style is unabashed and uninhibited and she puts her bittersweet material across with quick witted charm. Her rapport with the audience is one of the show’s strengths.
The main drive of the show is humorous, but Williams is diving fairly deep into her own life, and not everything she comes up with is meant to be funny. She’s got the professional moves and confidence to travel through sensitive territory, come out the other side laughing – or at least standing upright – and bring her audience with her.
U Can Heal My Life!! is on upstairs at Tuatara’s Third Eye bar in Arthur Street. The small, pleasantly informal venue is perfect for this show – it’s like sitting around someone’s living room and being entertained by one of the other guests, who happens to be in a confessional mood and also outrageously talented.
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*Inspo is a real word meaning something or someone that serves as inspiration or motivation, in case you don’t know (we had to check on Google).
Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer
Comments
Maria WILLIAMS March 24th, 2018
Thank you very much for coming to the show(ing) Tim and James, and for this lovely review! Thanks for putting up so well with me referring to you so much in the show(ing) also!
If anyone else who went to the show would like to provide feedback to help with future seasons I've made a google doc here (if that's ok Editor) : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdrI5WDtFs7h28sxiJ_pDEUGUiyBqdWLSwNZHTypiDMyrTzgg/viewform?usp=sf_link
Also, thank you for all the reviewers for coverage of the Fringe Festival, trying to cover the festival was no small feat.