In the compelling Live Girls, playwright Victoria Stewart examines the implications of interview-inspired performance. At the play's center is solo performer Sarah Brown, at work on a new show. One of her subjects is Sonia Ridge, a porn star, and during the course of Live Girls, we see not only the interview that Sarah conducts with Sonia, but also portions of Sarah's performance as Sonia. (When this happens, Josh Bradford's excellent lighting turns a sensual red, obscuring most of John McDermott's beautifully conceived boutique hotel interior.)
Interspersed with these scenes are ones that reveal Sarah's relationship with her assistant, Allison, a doctoral candidate at work on a dissertation about the performer. Allison's work ultimately gives Live Girls an additional layer. When she presents her thesis to Sarah, the performer is appalled at how this other woman has "appropriated" portions of her life.
It's heady and charged material, particularly when the play suggests an uncomfortable similarity between Sonia's work (which she views with clinical detachment) and that of a solo performer: Both are re-creating intensely private experiences in a very public setting. Stewart shrewdly reveals the similarities during a technical rehearsal for Sarah's piece, when she stops midway through her re-creation of some of Sonia's most painful memories to complain about lighting levels.
Under Lou Jacob's assured direction and featuring a trio of richly realized performances, Live Girls unfolds with gripping intensity. Pamela Hart's solid work as the steely Sarah centers the production marvelously. Jenny Maguire gives a performance of layered nuance as Allison, who could be portrayed as simply an eager gofer. As Sonia, Suli Holum captivates with a twinkling shrewdness.
Before the show has run its swift 90 minutes, Stewart twists her plot ingeniously, ultimately making Live Girls not only a rich examination of biographical appropriation but also a powerful emotional experience.
Presented by and at Urban Stages, 259 W. 30th St., NYC. Oct. 25-Nov. 26. Sun.-Wed., 8 p.m. (Additional performances Wed., Nov. 8, and Wed., Nov. 15, 3 p.m. No performance Wed., Nov. 22.) (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com. Casting by Susan W. Lovell.