SNL’S Cecily Strong in The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe
When Saturday Night Live’s beloved troop member Cecily Strong was cast in ‘The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life in The Universe’, I was excited to see her perform the one-woman show now in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum. Strong impersonates an array of quirky women imagined by playwright Jane Wagner.
Wagner won the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Special Award for the uniqueness of “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” after making its Broadway debut in 1985. Starring her favorite person on earth, Lily Tomlin, the show was successful enough to be turned into a film in 1991, starring Tomlin again.
Actress Cecily Strong. Photo by CTGLA.
The show opens with a minimal black stage and two movable black boxes designed by Mary Hamrick and Christine Jones. Director Leigh Silverman has Strong walk out into an arc of lights by Lighting designer Lap Chi Chu. The was a welcoming applause as she introduced us to the main character, Trudy.
Trudy is an observant woman who lives on the street and keeps Post-it notes inside her trench coat. She removes a note to enlighten her aliens friends about what’s real and what’s not on earth. Strong gets a few laughs while trying to explain the difference between a can of Campbell soup and Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup art. She uses this reference a few times throughout the show.
Set design by Mary Hamrick and Christine Jones. Photo by CTGLA.
Each character Strong plays is slightly different in vocals and mannerisms. The characters Lyn, Edie, Marge, and Pam showcase a wave of feminism in the 80s. With no props and minimal costume changes, it’s sometimes hard to distinguish if she is an annoyed teenager, a sad socialite, two sex workers sharing their life story, or a concert violinist who seems to regret choosing marriage and a family over living out her dream.
Wagner in an interview said “I have long been fascinated by the mystical implications of quantum theory, In truth, my dream was to get the audience to experience the universality of the deep interconnectedness of all living things – with Trudy as the guide… I wanted us to flash on just that thought – that we’re all connected.”
Actress Cecily Strong. Photo by CTGLA
My husband and I wanted to feel that connection, that Wagner tried to achieve with all the characters, but we didn’t. Sound Designer Jeff Gardner, helped heighten Strong’s scenes with realistic sound effects, and also helped keep those nodding off awake.
The show is differently unique, yet the topics that might have been popular in the 1980s seem dated now. There is an iCloud and Elon Musk reference, even the timely mention of the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision, didn’t help. As one of the character’s Lyn puts it, “we thought we were changing the system, but the system changed us.” We walked out of the show impressed of how Strong memorized and performed 90-minutes of dialogue without an intermission. Maybe if she had multi-media projections on the walls of the stage, her characters and the show would have been more entertaining and changed us too.
