The odd trial between Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow and retired optometrist Terry Sanderson over a 2016 skiing accident was so innately campy that it makes a theatrical parody both redundant and inevitable, which is why there have been two such shows, both of which played the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. One of these, “Gwyneth Goes Skiing,” is now at the International Fringe Encore Series at SoHo Playhouse through January 26 – a quintessential fringe show that’s unsurprisingly over-the-top, but also unexpectedly spot-on in its central performance, and inventive in the rest of the casting.
Linus Karp and Joseph Martin, who wrote and directed the show together, portray the two antagonists, Karp as Gwyneth with a mostly convincing blonde wig and ethereal manner, Martin as Terry with an unconvincing bristly beard, crusty bearing and a growly voice that reminded me of Oscar the Grouch.
For the first half of this 90-minute show, Karp does Gwyneth to a t, introducing herself as a daughter of Hollywood – her father the filmmaker Bruce Paltrow, her mother the actress Blythe Danner, her godfather “Stephen Spielberg, the inventor of cinema,” her first husband “Coldplay singer, and the color beige personified, Chris Martin.” Many of the jokes were like that: I didn’t find them especially funny, but Karp puts them over so well that I laughed anyway.
Karp has a kind of poise and grace that somehow feels genuine, even as we know it’s an act for comic effect. He also knows how to work a crowd, which comes in handy.
The night I attended “Gwyneth Goes Skiing,” it drew a packed house despite sub-freezing weather, mostly the sort of theatergoers you might expect at such a show — I sat near Charles Busch, the talented theater and drag artist who’s a master of camp – but also people who seemed likely Gwyneth fans, such as the young blonde woman radiating wealth and wellness who was wearing a sweater that she told me she wears when she goes skiing. The production spontaneously enlisted some half dozen of these audience members to portray the other characters, such as Gwyneth’s boyfriend turned second husband Brad Falchuk, and Terry Sanderson’s ex-girlfriend; they read from cue cards and a teleprompter. This probably shouldn’t have worked, but it did. Karp and Martin were the only permanent cast members – unless you count the apple that played Gwyneth’s daughter Apple, or the cardboard cutout of the deer at the Deer Valley, Utah resort where the accident took place, or muppet-like puppet that portrays Terry’s lawyer, or the recorded audio or video cameos by figures like Trixie Mattel, veteran of RuPaul’s Drag Race, as Blythe Danner.
There are four original songs in “Gwyneth Goes Skiing,” none memorable enough nor integral enough to call the show a musical. When we finally get to the trial, I reacted with ambivalence. On the one hand, Gwyneth’s cross-examination of Terry is hilarious, with the retired optometrist admitting that he compared her to King Kong and Godzilla, accused Gwyneth of letting out a “blood curdling scream… it was ‘aaaah’ and then…BOOM.” when he says she skied into her, and after the collision told his daughter “I’m famous” rather than telling her about the crash or his “supposed injuries.”
Gwyneth then makes an aside: “Girls, gays and theys of the jury. Do I seem like the kind of woman who would let out a blood curdling scream like “aaahh”? Don’t answer that Brad.”
On the other hand, Gwyneth ends her interrogation by saying “No further questions. And for the record – this section is surprisingly close to verbatim.” King Kong, Godzilla, “blood-curdling scream” and “I’m famous” – all true. (“Girls, gays and theys….Don’t answer that Brad” surely fiction.) It made me wonder if “Gwyneth Goes Skiing” would have been even campier if everything in it had stuck to the transcript
