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By the mid-1990s, when she decided she was here in to stay in the Big Apple, Texas native Faye Lane had already begun grabbing any and all audience possible as an actress, singer, poetess, storyteller and all-around really nice person, with a brilliant mix of sophistication and a down-home quality that proved her as sincerely sweet as a strawberry pie.
Where she made her most fabulous initial impact at the time, however, was at the now-defunct Eighty Eight's, the legendary cabaret on 10th Street west of Bleecker in the West Village. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that her show Faye Lane's Beauty Shop Stories, playing at the equally-legendary LaMama on East 4th Street as part of the New York Fringe Festival, could be perceived by some as nothing more than a glorified cabaret act. In point off act, however, it emerges a glorious evening of one-woman theatre that blazes it's way across the cultural highway, like a sudden and unexpected thunderstorm one might see in a Southwestern summer season.
Focusing mainly on her girlhood as an overweight child with gargantuan dreams of stardom, we are transported to her mother's self-run business, namely the Casa Vale Beauty Shop, where she'd entertain the ladies held captive under the hair dryers by performing concerts and dreaming of the day when she'd finally get to New York, be a star and travel the world. Along the highways and byways, we meet several characters who were regular customers at the beauty shop, including Miss Helen, who advises young Faye (or Rhonda Faye, as she was known then) to have a Banana Moon Pie out of her purse but to "be careful, mah gun's in there," to a customer she only calls Miss Vader for her resemblance to Darth Vader, both for holding a cigarette in one hand and her oxygen mask in the other, and sucking on both simultaneously. Lane equally delves into her father's influence upon her life both inside and outside the beauty shop, and not one moment isn't completely riveting besides side-splittingly humorous.
A singular moment (one which she initially released upon New York in her cabaret act) comes with the song "I'm A Green Bean Queen" by Larry Rosen, preceded by the fact that Lane was chosen to portray the Green Bean in her grade school production of Peter Rabbit, and proceeded to literally wipe the floor with all assembled. Other equally-marvelous anecdotes include her escape to London with barely a thousand dollars, enrolling in Lee Strasberg's school as an actress, making friends with a girl named Agnes who would become her best friend, and when asked if she'd like to become the girl's roommate, in a sumptuous apartment that featured chandeliers and sunken bathtubs, telling her, "Agnes, I can barely afford food. I could never pay the rent on a place like this." Which leads, to her surprise, to the discovery that Agnes's father is a leading and legendary figure in the world of entertainment and owns the apartment. There are other further developments, none worth mentioning lest this humble writer give away any more surprises, but suffice it to say, these instances only add to the glory of Lane's intention with the show.
Musically, as to be expected, Lane never disappoints through so much as a note. Whether comic or dramatic, she takes the audience with her at every turn on such numbers as Carol Hall's "Bus from Amarillo," "What A Friend I Have in Jesus" by Joseph M. Scriven, and a plethora of songs by the incomparable Keith Thompson, including "Sittin' on the Front Porch in My Pretty-Plus Jeans," "The Bigfoot Song," "Haulin'" and "Shine," which is most often associated with Jay Rogers, who, it just so happens, directed this show and did a bang-up job.
The end of the Fringe Festival should by no circumstances should mark the end of the proverbial line for Faye Lane's Beauty Shop Stories. It simply must continue, and delight audiences everywhere possible.
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