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Faker

nytheatre.com review by Leslie Bramm
August 15, 2005

A pianist and a dyke.Say that ten times really fast. Faker, a one-woman musical sketch comedy show, is that and more. Welcome to the hilarious, often sad and self-mocking world of Karen Weinberg. With the use of slide projections, she takes us on a journey through her ugly duckling—or perhaps better said, ugly Jewish duckling—adolescence. We travel through her teen years, where she experiments with both boys and girls, up to and through her decision to have a nose job. Weinberg plays ten different characters ranging from her mother and grandmother to a Catholic priest; Sophia, her teenage object of desire; and Hava, her megastar alter-ego.Oh, did I mention that she sings and dances as well?Faker is about the people who believe that they can’t be who they are or ever be what they really want to be; that who they are growing into, must undergo radical change in order to be accepted and loved by the world (but really just loved by their mother). While the idea of an actor wrestling with her identity, only to come back around to her original self, is hardly a new concept, Faker handles the subject matter boldly. Weinberg is the target of most of her cutting humor and yet she makes it very easy to sit there and laugh at her, to her face. Which is quite lovely, as are her breasts, which she offers to the audience for approval.Did I mention the songs? There are six of them, as a matter of fact, which Weinberg co-composed with musical director and aforementioned pianist Jonathan Wagner. Here is where Weinberg adds another dimension onto the idea of the one-person show. Another character. As I write this, I’m just now getting the joke.Her pianist, in addition to being a versatile player and talented singer, also serves as her conscience, stopping her in the middle of bits to question her honesty and/or why she’s doing a story of her life to begin with. Atop his piano is a buzzer which he buzzes whenever Weinberg ventures into dishonesty or exaggeration. The two have a great rapport and Weinberg is generous with the amount of stage time she shares with him. In fact there were a couple of points where his acting and playing came close to stealing the show. His post-operative rendition of a nose job is worth the price of the ticket alone.Direction is by Norm Holly, who was able to reel in Weinberg when necessary, no easy task to be sure. Faker takes us into the heart of a talented woman, but more important a person who has learned to survive. Not only from the crap that life threw at her, but from herself as well.