Hell is Other Cast Members: Why the One-Person Show?

Between Andrew Scott’s “Vanya,” Sarah Snook’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” Jodie Comer’s “Prima Facie,” and Eddie Izzard’s “Izzard Hamlet New York,” theater audiences — or theater producers, at the very least — have a fever for one-person shows.

One-person shows are nothing new — but to see such a wealth of this peculiar style within the past two years begs the question: Why put on a one-man show?

Qualifying solo shows with their star first isn’t an accident — at least not when it comes to their inception. Currently, at the highest professional level, one-person shows almost always feature celebrities.

We’re in a particular renaissance of Broadway borrowing stars of the screen — to the extent that The New York Times released a guide to which celebrities feature in each production this season. Sarah Snook’s “Succession” co-star Jeremy Strong just took home the coveted Tony for “Leading Actor in a Play,” an award recently given to Sean Hayes, Bryan Cranston, and Andrew Garfield. Meanwhile, “Leading Actress” went to “American Horror Story” star Sarah Paulson. The vast majority of these shows are straight plays — since the recent triple threats of cinema, like Mike Faist and Ariana DeBose, tend to migrate from Broadway to Hollywood rather than vice versa.

So while one-person shows aren’t unusual in their usage of celebrity actors, they do stand out as the most dependent on an established actor. In contrast, multi-actor play “Stereophonic,” which broke records this year with a staggering 13 Tony nominations, continues to sell out with no celebrity similar of scale to Jeremy Strong or Bryan Cranston. Finding a recent one-person show with an unknown lead is nearly impossible — which makes sense when we focus on the production element. Casting big stars to boost box office sales on plays, which are much less costly than musicals, creates a safe and lucrative investment for producers. Additionally, plays do not typically open with the presumption that the show will run for a full year — freeing the actor from a lengthy commitment.

As for the actor, one-person performances may be more demanding than a typical straight play, but with that comes greater recognition for their work. Solo endeavors have a particular allure when it comes to critical appraisal as well as creating new career opportunities. Just last year Jodie Comer won “Best Actress in a Play” for “Prima Facie,” in which she portrayed a criminal defense lawyer reckoning with the law and its handling of sexual assault. The potential for a film adaptation also provides an enticing reward for the actor, and there’s precedent to back it up. Lily Tomlin’s performance in “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” gained such critical acclaim that the play was adapted into a successful film. In 1998, Academy Award winner Spike Lee directed HBO’s adaptation of John Leguizamo’s one-man Broadway show “Freak,” and subsequently cast Leguizamo in his upcoming film “Summer of Sam.”

Whether or not they end up getting an award, these single-person shows provide particularly rich opportunities for actors. In many ways, the solo performance is the most extreme showing of an actor’s prowess. In the case that the actor performs as multiple characters, they flex their versatility. In the case that they perform as a single character, they flex their verisimilitude. Either way, they show off incredible stamina to carry hours of entertainment and fill up a large theater. It is rare that an actor gets such a meaty amount of dramatic exercise outside of this highly specific context.

An extreme showing of prowess also means the most extreme possibility for failure. When one actor has a bad day in an ensemble show, the rest of the cast can pick up the slack. When the one actor in the entire show has a bad day — or fundamentally bit off more than they can chew — there’s little to do to salvage anything. Eddie Izzard’s aforementioned performance in which she played all the roles in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” sadly received lukewarm reviews, with some even mentioning line flubbing.

Perhaps the more notable part of this current phenomenon is not the method but the content of the performance. Successful one-person performances from theatrical history tend to be original works created for a specific actor. The benefit of performing work crafted with a specific actor, even yourself, in mind is the work’s specificity to that actor’s skills. In 1983, Whoopi Goldberg created her own star-making self-titled stage show, which played to her comedic strengths. For a more recent example, look to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Fleabag,” first performed in 2013, which was so popular that it spawned the hit BBC show of the same name. Each work was both created and acted by the same person, drawing from personal observations and artistic choices. This style makes a natural fit for the one-person show since the material is inherently connected to a singular voice. This is to say nothing of revue-style shows like “Elaine Stritch at Liberty,” which serve as a cabaret of greatest hits.

In contrast, Snook, Scott, and Izzard tackle theatrical classics like Wilde, Chekov, and Shakespeare. With one-person productions occurring today, it’s easy to ask why the material is better served with a singular performer. Texts like “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” a story about narcissism, more easily justify themselves than “Uncle Vanya” or “Hamlet.” That being said, thought certainly went into adapting these works for a single actor. In an interview with Theater Thoughts, “Vanya” director Sam Yates said that by having Scott act out all roles, “we put the act of storytelling central to this story,” which allows the audience to look at themselves through the characters.

Another exciting feature of contemporary solo shows is the role of technology in unlocking new staging techniques. Director Ivo van Hove popularized utilizing live footage captured by onstage cameramen in productions like “Network.” Snook’s “Dorian Gray” utilizes these techniques with large screens that show both live footage and previous footage of Snook portraying other characters. These elements can create an entire onstage “cast” and solve the fundamental problem of how to simultaneously portray multiple characters. One could argue that there’s no better time to put on a one-person show, and it’s possible this tech will continue to be utilized to this extent in the near future.

As plays need more star power to break even and actors want more serious roles, the one-person show may be one of the best options for both actors and producers. For audiences, they could be in store to watch a career-defining highlight or a flop. Either way, these shows have a great deal of potential — but it’s up to one person to access it.

—Staff writer Ria S. Cuéllar-Koh can be reached at ria.cuellarkoh@thecrimson.com.