2007 LA WEEKLY AWARD – BEST SOLO PERFORMANCE
& PICK OF THE WEEK
Just when you feel you’d rather throw yourself out a 10th-floor window than sit through another autobiographical one-woman show about the performer’s professional and romantic travails, along comes Lusia Strus, reinvigorating the meaning of “character” in the term character actress.
Strus was a years-long smoker and drinker, which has set her vocal range somewhere near baritone. This, combined with her ferocious sarcasm and pinpoint timing, sets the otherwise bare stage for the interweaving story of two marriages: that of her parents — Polish Ukrainian immigrants to Chicago — and that of her own. Each is a product of its location in time and culture, of its own particular addictions, and each functions and/or collapses on its own terms.
Her stories are world-weary and world-wise sojourns through love and death, bitingly smart and peppered with Strus’ fitful zeal for life. “Soooo tired,” is a recurring motif in the mouths of many of Strus’ characters, refugees from Ukrainian shtetls and Las Vegas diners. “First, I lost hope. Then I lost faith,” she says, describing her breaking heart. Bitter without being embittered, funny without being glib, sweet without being maudlin, Strus’ performance captures a heart smothered in the dried glue of having been repaired so often, yet still beating with compassion.
Steven Leigh Morris, Editor – L.A. Weekly
CRITIC’S CHOICE
“Lusia Strus’ one-woman show, it ain’t no fairy tale is a riveting story of addiction, destruction and devotion inspired by her parents’ marriage and her own. Telling the tale in a sardonic, raspy voice, Strus combines matter-of-factness with wry amusement to deliver a funny, interesting, captivating piece”.
Jennifer Vanasco – Chicago Reader
“Lusia Strus’ straightforward, purely autobiographical “it ain’t no fairy tale” shines. She opens by telling of her own wedding and wonders if love can last a lifetime. The cynics among us might feel compelled to run screaming from such a potentially saccharine premise, but Strus keeps things richly human by laying out the irreconcilable contradictions of her own nuptials. Love is like a bubble that delights a child but stains a $6,000 Vera Wang dress. Love is like a fairy tale, filled with shiny things and bleeding feet being shoved into shoes too small. Fifty eight percent of all marriages end in divorce with the first eight years, yet she cherishes her unrivaled collection of bridal magazines.
It helps that she’s able to root her love in the most pedestrian of places: a diner in Vegas where one day her fiancé ate an omelet “and I realized I could look at that for the rest of my life”. Then she has her parents’ lifelong love to inspire her, a relationship that began in communist Ukraine amid various blacklists, food deprivations, and travel restrictions and ended in a modest Chicago bungalow where her father rotted away from cancer. Strus paints their story in exquisite detail.
“it ain’t no fairy tale” is expertly constructed and delivered with unwavering precision, commitment and warmth. Strus remains nearly motionless throughout, yet her masterful text and laser sharp delivery throw more vibrant hues across Steppenwolf’s gray garage than the richest Technicolor film ever could. It will be a great loss to the city when she moves away in a few months. As a wedding present I suggest every theater in town send her a set of keys so that she can come back and perform wherever and whenever she likes”.
Justin Hayford –Chicago Reader
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
“In “it ain’t no fairy tale”, her remarkable meditation on marriage, Strus interweaves the relationship of her Ukrainian immigrant parents with her own impending plans for betrothal. In the process, she offers a ferociously honest, fiercely impassioned, often starkly funny and deeply moving look at what it means to take and keep wedding vows (and what it takes to break them). Rarely have the terror and wonder of the words “love, honor and cherish” been explored with more heart and soul.
A tall, slim blond with an allure that suggests 1940s “B” movie stardom and an accent that is pure West Side of Chicago, Strus is a formidable writer whose honey-coated, gravelly voice is the perfect instrument of expression for her own words.
And with a view at once profoundly romantic and utterly clear-eyed, she leads us on the most intimate odyssey of Old World and New World relationships, brilliantly limning the rights of courtship; the strange components of attraction, repulsion and acceptance, and the whole gamut of expectations that are so often undermined by real life”.
“Wedding vows are not civilized”, she reminds us. Strus tells the story of a woman who abandoned any thought of vanity when she ran into the street nude to get to her dying husband. She talks of her own (then) fiancé, how she could watch the way he ate an omelet and still love him. She reinvents the marriage of her parents with riveting precision, recounts their working class life and scorchingly recalls her mother’s rage when her husband dies too soon.
All in all, it’s a tour de force that should be required viewing for any couple approaching the altar”.
Hedy Weiss, Editor – Chicago Sun-Times
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
“it ain’t no fairy tale” … a wise and revelatory piece from Strus, who riffs on her marriage. Initially, we’re lulled into thinking this is yet another piece about a former progressive who finds herself seduced by Bride Magazine. But by the end of her remarkable show, she’s honored her parents’ marriage, explored her own neuroses and taken us on a theatrical journey … poignant, incisive, moving, beautifully performed and both original and distinctive in conception. Strus is leaving Chicago. Hopefully the right jobs will bring her back. ”
Chris Jones, Arts Reporter – Chicago Tribune
I felt like quoting an Elton John song while watching Lusia Strus and saying "Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen."
She is such a beautiful, vivid storyteller and you feel like she's your best friend confiding in you. Lusia is a cross between Kate Capshaw and Michelle Pfeiffer, lovely to look at, soft, strong, and sometimes with a lion's roar when she's angry every once in a while. As a member of the audience you feel privileged and comfortable to be in her star quality presence. She's very easy to listen to and concentrate on.
Lusia makes you feel the pain of marriage, being separated as a family and then illnesses that make her mother a servant to her dying father. Then when she marries she repeats the cycle having to serve her alcohlic husband.
This show is entertaining and real and you feel like you're giving and receiving therapy to get yourself well. It is well worth seeing.
Laurie Senit - KCLA-FM internet radio
American Radio Network "Love Time"
"IT AIN'T NO FAIRY TALE", BUT IT'S GOOD THEATRE!
Hollywood - Lusia Strus' one-woman show is sanguine and truthful. You will be joyously disturbed by the human foibles that are untangled. The title is partially what you can expect of the show. But it is also humorous, earthy and distinctly human, the type of human that chooses to stew in its juices, slowly revealing the connectedly complex collisions of life. Ironically, the first half of the show is Lusia's one-woman show from a few years back when she was falling in love and getting married.
The second half is now, after the crash of that same marriage. The journey interweaves beyond her marriage to family, youth and smoking. This is a rewarding evening where the simplicity of her presentation is welcome, where less is so much more, where an actor shows her talent not by how much she can do but by how subtly and earnestly she permeates and presents the story. To be clear ... this trip to Hollywood's theatre row brings this rave review despite what Lusia Strus points out in her show, "Today's honesty is tomorrow's (BS)."
But my rave stands because the work cleverly wades through both honesty AND ensuing (BS), showing the humor and interconnections to each, perhaps usurping tomorrow's effect upon this honesty today.
Kenneth Hughes – Tolucan Times (CA)
Lusia Strus is a pragmatic romantic whose past alliance was based on their being "good to each other, nice to each other - we had a deal." Surprised that even she bought into the nuptial traditions, with husky-voiced delivery and a droll, staccato punch Strus peels back the layers of connubiality until it is raw. She spritzes humor all over the illusions of her huge collection of Wedding magazines.
Her frankness was nurtured in a Ukrainian Village nestled in Chicago and honed by a father who didn't buy flowers but always brought home meat. Strus also offers an homage to a hard working mother whose monosyllabic words of wisdom bespoke unadorned truth.
"it ain't no fairy tale" is a parable where you get to laugh at the ogres of pretense.
Tracy Gore - The Ticket Stub!
A one-person show is risky. If the star fumbles her lines, she has nowhere to turn. If she forgets her monologue, there's nobody to jump in and improvise. It takes someone with charisma, talent and a little something extra to handle the rigors of a one-person show, and Lusia Strus navigates her one-woman show, "It Ain't No Fairy Tale," with grace and humor.
Strus has had some film roles, most notably Alexa in "50 First Dates" opposite Adam Sandler, but the stage seems to be where she really shines. The set is minimalist, consisting of a black floor, black walls and two stools-one for her and one where her water bottle sits. She wears just a black top and black pinstripe pants. With such a simple set and sedated clothing, Strus' monologue is the focus -- and rightfully so.
The first half of her show artfully weaves together her experience of being engaged and getting married with her immigrant mother's experience. She adopts her mother's Ukrainian accent with ease and it seems to be a natural extension of her personality. The stories parallel each other beautifully, and it is with Strus's honest and simple writing that they come together. She is easily relatable and offers her story honestly. She does not ask you to identify with her, and despite the deeply personal aspects of her story, the themes are universal.
Her story is autobiographical. Strus does not mince words and does not over-dramatize, which personalizes her story further as she invites you into her world. Addiction, cancer, love, marriage and divorce are all faced in a matter-of-fact way as Strus artfully balances poignancy and wit. She reacts to the trials she has faced in her life with her motto, which she wistfully wishes she could learn to inscribe on a mug in script -- "Yesterday's honesty is tomorrow's BS, swirly swirly." It's little comments like these that make her show appealing and highly relatable.
Strus proudly speaks of her show as evolving, and while the second half was a recent addition, it is evident that the show evolves even as it is being performed. Not only are the basic plot and storyline moving along, but Strus transforms while standing under the spotlight. She shines and takes command of the stage with a quiet and controlled passion. Strus's expert storytelling allows the audience to become entirely immersed in her tale as she tells it, painting pictures of love, devotion, uncertainty, addiction and much more.
"It Ain't No Fairy Tale" is a refreshing and satisfying change from some of the less than stellar one-person shows that have been populating Hollywood's theater scene. Strus's candor and intelligence make this show a must-see, and visiting Hollywood's Theatre Row is a necessity for any theater fan.
This show is a limited engagement and promises to have a full house every night.
Grade: A
Kristen Imboden - The Loyolan
MORE OF WHAT THE CRITICS SAY …
“Once you see Lusia Strus, you’re not likely to forget her.”
Chicago Tribune – Tempo Cover Story
“A tall, slim blond with an allure that suggests 1940s “B” movie stardom and an accent that is pure West Side of Chicago”
Chicago Sun-Times
“ … Along comes Lusia Strus, reinvigorating the meaning of “character” in the term character actress.”
LA Weekly – Steven Leigh Morris, Editor
“Beneath all the Bulgarian weightlifter personality and walrus vomit, there beats the heart of a Hollywood Starlet … On googling Lusia Strus – she’s at least an 8.”
The San Diego Union Tribune
Copley News Service
National Review of 50 First Dates DVD
“Strus is potty mouthed and delicious.”
Time Out - Chicago
“Lusia has a lot of potential.”
Sister Celeste – 1st Grade
Saint Bartholomew Grade School
Chicago, Illinois