My overall impression
You hear the word ‘genius’ tossed around a lot – but in the case of Abby Schachner, it’s actually accurate.
Attendees from last year’s fringe will recall her solo show, Schachner vs. Schachner, an unbelievable – yet absolutely true story – of Abby’s most unique childhood and family. This year’s offering might be a trickier sell, ‘A Show featuring poems for children’ as I heard one person ‘try’ to describe it. Even as a huge fan, I have to say, I took pause. But now I’m ashamed of that pause, and I’m so glad that logic overtook me when I figured, ‘but ABBY created it…..’ because it’s nothing less of brilliant. And you find yourself so fascinated by the mind who created it, and so drawn in by the intoxicatingly charismatic presence of this gifted solo artist and her extremely skillful writing and her incredible performance. Not only are these poems so deftly written, but the character work that she weaves in throughout is extraordinarily engaging. (I mean seriously, this is the heart of Hollywood, can no one give her her own show already!?) Watching this, I started to see it as a possible future children’s series, that could be equally enjoyed by adults – not unlike PeeWee’s Playhouse of the 80’s, and at the same time envisioning the children’s book-line that could also roll out from that!
Now in the spirit of full disclosure, Abby is a friend of mine.
But she wasn’t the very first time I saw her perform in an obscure theatre way up north on Lincoln Ave. in Chicago about 20 some years ago. But I have never forgotten that performance or the amazing monologue she wrote and performed in that show. I knew right then and there that this was a truly special artist with one of the most creatively unique voices and rare and intelligent minds of anyone I’d ever seen. And I have been to just about every solo show she’s done since – I believe with just one exception, when we lived in different cities for a time.
And at some point we became friends. So I now know what I long suspected, that she truly IS one of the kindest, most creative, most intelligent, and yes, most bizarre (in a GREAT way!) people you’d ever want to know. She IS who you see. She’s the most real and unedited person I have ever known. And her work is always inspired and definitely worth taking in.
After all, how often do you truly get to observe a REAL genius at work?
