Fans of Saturday Night Live may have noticed that Cecily Strong hasn’t been on the first few episodes of this season. That’s because she’s been in Los Angeles, bringing Jane Wagner’s one-woman show to life.
That show, The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, first started out as a vehicle for Lily Tomlin in 1985. The play was then turned into a movie in 1991, again with Tomlin playing all of the parts.
Last year, Strong first revived the show in New York for an off-Broadway run. Starting last month, she brought the show to Los Angeles. And to say that the show is tough to pull off for any performer would be putting it mildly.
Essentially, the show is a tour de force for any sketch character actress, which makes the threshold of who can star in the show incredibly thin.
Our protagonist is a bag lady who is working with aliens to study human life forms. She travels in time to assess the human subjects, and seamlessly brings them to life onstage before our very eyes. The second half of the show – which heavily chronicles the feminist movement of the 1960’s and 70’s and remains as true today – is where you start to see how every character we’ve seen is tied together. And the results are a true testament to Strong as a performer, as much as it is to Wagner’s script.
It calls for a performer that can ease in and out of characters, while keeping up with the fast-paced nature of Wagner’s dialogue. To pull this off in an ensemble would be hard enough. But when you’re all by yourself on that stage, it could have disastrous results if not handled properly.
Cecily Strong makes it all look effortless. You can see all the years of character training at comedy institutions like Second City, iO, and of course Saturday Night Live up on that stage. Tomlin, of course, had the same type of character training via Laugh-In and her various variety specials over the years.
That’s why Strong could’ve easily just phoned it in with her background as a sketch performer, and just allowed it to be a character showcase. But she instead showcased who she is as a performer, with a focus on bringing depth to the material, as opposed to just showing off what she could do.
The show has been slightly updated for some current references, but the sentiment behind it remains the same. It feels just as relevant today as it would have back in the 80’s, if not more.
The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe is finishing up its run this week on October 23rd. Tickets can be found here.