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Where Was I?

Character actress Karen Ludwig’s stroll down memory lane takes her to ”Manhattan”, Hollywood, and beyond.

Karen Ludwig in her self-penned solo show Where Was I?, directed by Dorothy Lyman, at Theatre 54 at Shetler Studios.
Karen Ludwig in her self-penned solo show Where Was I?, directed by Dorothy Lyman, at Theatre 54 at Shetler Studios.
(© Nick Suttle)

An empty chair. A glass of water. A phone with an incessant caller on the other end. Karen Ludwig employs all the trappings of your typical one-woman show (designed by James Fenton) in Where Was I?, Ludwig's self-penned memoir now running at Shetler Studios' Theatre 54. The show traverses a storied career filled with cameos from the biggest stars of Hollywood and Broadway.

If the name Karen Ludwig doesn't ring a bell, you're not alone. Ludwig is one of the hardest-working women in show biz, but despite her lengthy career, her name could roll by unnoticed in a stream of film credits. And yet, she's played a lesbian lover to Meryl Streep, has starred opposite Joan Rivers on Broadway, and was personally reprimanded by Anne Bancroft for her addiction to Dexamyl.

Directed by Emmy-winning actress Dorothy Lyman (of Mama's Family fame), Ludwig jumps from story to story, casually chatting with the endearing affectation of your favorite Jewish aunt at a coffee klatch. Beyond her conversational interjections of the titular phrase — "where was I?" — there is hardly any throughline connecting her tales. But when you're enjoying a delightful kibitz, narrative arc is the last thing you're going to kvetch about.

For the duration of her enchanting 80-minute monologue, Ludwig nestles into her persona as a perpetually pavement-pounding actress. She's stumbled into some good fortune along the way — landing the role of Connie in Woody Allen's iconic film Manhattan (hence her onscreen romance with Streep) and starring as Ethel Rosenberg in the TV movie Citizen Cohn, not to mention her stints as mentee to the great Stella Adler, Uta Hagen, and Kaye Ballard. And yet, at age 72, she finds herself jumping at phone calls from her agent about a one-word role on Inside Amy Schumer as a "grumpy lesbian life coach." Depressing? Not for Ludwig. She revels in her Forrest Gump-like career, shrugging off the ups and downs, both professional and personal, with a that's show biz! kind of attitude.

The show's comic sensibilities shield some murkier depths of Ludwig's past that she occasionally broaches but quickly shies away from. Stories of excessive offstage (and onstage) drinking, her Dexamyl anecdote (featuring the great Anne Bancroft during Ludwig's Broadway debut in The Devils), and periodic mentions of an overly critical mother are always lightened with a punchline. A whimsical slide show filled with photos of her deceased contemporaries and tall glasses of Bloody Marys also brighten the mood — and orient Ludwig in the winding tales that lead her to her next "where was I?"

She says from the beginning, "This isn't about my sobriety, or recovery from alcohol, or about my mother who didn't give me what I needed" — though all of those things certainly hover just beneath her strategically steely poker face. It's simply a tour of a career built on Stella Adler's immortal advice: "Know what it is you love to do and then do it like Hercules!" The yarn she spins may not be particularly revealing, but it certainly is mythical.

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Where Was I?

Closed: September 13, 2015