As the play begins, self-described bag lady Trudy is waiting on the corner of Walk/Don’t Walk in New York City for an arranged meeting with the aliens she’s befriended.
The role made famous by Lily Tomlin in “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” (the one-woman, two-act comedy by Jane Wagner) has new life now at Aurora Theatre Company in Berkeley. Originally premiering onstage in 1985 (and made into a 1991 film), the play has new life now, as performed by local playwright-comedian Marga Gomez.
“For me, going crazy was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Trudy says. Even if you’ve never before seen the play or film, many of the lines, like that one, may be familiar. “Reality is nothing more than a collective hunch,” Trudy observes early on.
As the two-hour-plus play continues, Trudy describes how she leads the little, eyelidless aliens through the streets of New York; they’re collecting data about us humans, a mystifying and presumably inferior species.
Along the way, Trudy—that is, Gomez–inhabits a variety of characters as they struggle through life’s challenges.
And her concerns as a sort of holy nutjob are memorable. “I worry,” she says, “what if God has Alzheimer’s and forgot us?” Indeed.
By Act 2, there are fewer of Trudy’s bons mots as Wagner explores in detail several women (and, along the way, some men too) who are each struggling with adversity: one is a mother of twins in a troubled marriage; another has a drinking problem; a third has a bad haircut (but that’s the least of her existential gloom).
The overall conceit is that Trudy is showing the aliens—and of course us–examples of how humans live. It won’t be until the very end that we see what the aliens make of it all. It’s a great and hilarious ending.
Gomez, a longtime local treasure, is known for many solo performances that she herself writes, in which she is usually some version of herself, warts and all. Here she’s in new territory, perhaps not quite as self-assured as she is doing her own material.
Under Jennifer King’s direction, she hadn’t on opening night found a way to differentiate the various physical characteristics of those she portrayed, nor their precise vocal qualities. (The varied accents are helpful, but she could use more). It should be smooth and instantaneous to figure out who’s talking at any given moment, but for me there was too often a time lag.
It’s unfortunate that Gomez’s costume is a green track suit; it connotes athleticism and not much else—but this wacky character is all about her wild imagination.
Gomez is an old hand at interacting with her audience, but here at the intimate Aurora, she seemed at times, on opening night, to be working too hard to communicate. Trudy has messages to impart, sure, but she’s also in a magical world of her own. It’s a delicate balance, which Gomez sometimes achieves effortlessly and sometimes not.
Finally, a word about Aurora Theatre. For decades, a cherished mainstay of the Bay Area mid-sized professional theater scene, it has announced closure for a year due to financial difficulties. Its future beyond that is uncertain. This represents a huge loss to local theatergoers, and a harbinger of increasingly hard times to come.
“The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” continues through Aug. 10 at Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley. Tickets are $20-$68 at Auroratheatre.org. Streaming performances ($26) are Aug. 5-10.
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