A one-person show can be challenging to pull off as the performer is the main focus for 50 mins -all eyes on them for the whole performance. The performer needs to captivate the audience and take them on a journey, have the audience invested in your story – Lucy Heffernan accomplishes this with her award-winning Fringe show Party Girl. Lucy manages to blend wit, catchy lyrics and vulnerability seamlessly, you won’t know if you will be laughing, singing or feeling emotional from one scene to the next.
Lucy plays a child entertainer named Fairy Sprinkles, who by day tries to follow the rules to be a good fairy but at night parties hard, using alcohol to dull her feelings. When Lucy is Fairy Sprinkles, she can be pretend that she is a fairy or even a unicorn and be transported to a magical place away from the realities of her life. When Lucy is forced to live in the real world, she contemplates if she is really a monster.
Party Girl is set over one Saturday where Lucy has three kids’ parties to perform at, her day gets turned upside down when she gets a phone call from her Mum. Lucy’s mum suffers from Bi-Polar and has had another episode that Lucy has to handle. This is when we witness Lucy at her most vulnerable, all the complexes of her feelings seeping onto the stage. Resentment, guilt, anger from having to be the carer to her mum. We get a glimpse of the little girl who was made to grow up before they were ready. Lucy does an amazing job of highlighting the struggles and lived experience of a family member who is a carer for someone who has a mental illness while never stigmatizing them. Lucy has perfected nuanced storytelling, with her songs and her body language. At one stage, I wanted to get up and give Lucy a hug.
The final part of the show left us with a touching moment between Lucy and her Mum. There may be resentment on Lucy’s part, but there is also empathy and love. Party Girl left us with some hope and belief for Lucy’s and her mum’s relationship in the future. It is important to share stories from the carer’s perspective, the ups, the downs and their pain.
Lucy is powerhouse with her rock voice, guitar riffs and stage presence even while wearing fairy wings and unicorn horns. Lucy shows off her versatility with her Aussie rap number and channeling her inner Cher. The audience were invested throughout the show by singing along and wearing props given to them. It felt like the audience and Lucy were connected as one. It was a magical show with Lucy leaving glitter and magic on the stage.