My Sunday afternoon at the Rogue Festival got a little weird when I took in Debi Ham’s one-woman show, Yellow Heaven. At this point in my experience with Rogue performances, I can say with confidence that this production meets the stereotypical “fringe festival” show where the plot and script are a little out there compared to traditional theatre. However, that does not lessen the committed, comedic performance Ham delivers as she takes the audience on her journey as an adolescent who is introduced to the whimsical world of imagination and Valium.
Ham has a troubled mother whose solution to life’s problems is the little yellow pill. When Ham’s young imagination gets the better of her, mom decides to introduce her to Valium as a coping device. This only accelerates and widens the child’s wonder and explorations. Through the course of her Valium-induced adventures we meet her three lovers: a pirate, a vampire, and Edgar Allan Poe. Ham’s focused, versatile physicality and vocal inflections help create this drugged up world for the audience to be wrapped in, even if they’re hesitant at the beginning. Ham plays her lovers, her young protagonist, her mother, and the detective in charge of solving a most vicious crime to an exceptional level of nuance and diversity.
I commend Ham for acting the heck out of a marathon of a one-woman show. Her back-and-forth between various characters maintains extreme consistency in dialect and physicality. Ham is one of those few solo performers that can successfully start at a high level of intense energy, and keep it going all show long.
Yellow Heaven will play at The Voice Shop on 3/10 at 6:30pm, Friday 3/11 at 8pm, and Saturday 3/12 at 12:30pm.
