Faith Salie visits the Ayurvedic Healing Center in her solo show Approval Junkie.
Comedian Faith Salie’s new solo show Approval Junkie, based on her book of the same title, is funny, insightful and heartfelt. Salie is an Emmy Award–winning journalist best known for her roles on NPR's Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! and CBS Sunday Morning. In her one-woman show, Salie begins with the adolescent need to seek approval. Her play explores the concept of the human need to be accepted and even revered.
“We all want to sit at the feet of someone with a century of wisdom and hear that once you get old enough, you stop striving, you figure it all out,” she exclaims. “You have, as the kids say, ‘zero fucks to give.’ But it doesn’t work that way. It feels too good to take a bow. I’m half a century old, and I give a ton of f’s that you’re sitting at my feet. Y’all came to the theater.”
Faith Salie performing at the High School Beauty Pageant. Photographs by Daniel Rader.
Salie takes the audience through her story as she reenacts poignant moments that shaped her life. She tells of her need to seek acceptance through high school beauty pageants, an eating disorder, a complicated relationship with her ex-husband (“wasband”) career faux pas, her current husband and miscarriages. Her stories are genuine and from the heart. In one, she shares her first email exchanges with her current husband. One is about the lead-up to their first date: “Yeah, I was testing him. I wanted to see if he could handle a woman who uses the F word. Fertility.” They meet and, she continues, “over three hours, I consume two and a half glasses of wine, and we cover a hundred topics. Breezy, first-date ones, like both of our divorces and our dead parents and Obama. Oh, you have dogs... Okay. Do you want kids? Because I do, and soon.” Her honesty is refreshing, real and hilarious.
As Salie retells her experiences, her emotions range from humorous in describing her cobalt-blue unitard in a high school beauty pageant, to sad and reflective in talking about her miscarriages and divorce. She is exceptionally strong when she’s comedic.
Under the direction of Amanda Watkins, the show comes together smoothly. Salie is charismatic, energetic and entertaining. As a seasoned comedian, she integrates humor as she recounts memories of people and events. She describes her mom as “a woman who’d pray the rosary while doing abdominal crunches. She’d play tennis for hours every weekday morning, which was part of the job description for Atlanta housewives. Then she’d come home and actually want to eat broccoli for lunch.” Alongside her humor and comedy, she allows herself to be vulnerable and puts her traumatic and joyous moments out there!
The set, designed by Jack Magaw, is sleek and minimalist, and includes framed shapes on large panels. The lighting design by Amanda Zieve complements the set by strategically highlighting, transitioning and setting the tone for the various scenes. Salie’s outfit, by costume designer Ivan Ingermann, is a modern jumpsuit that allows for movement and fits well with the contemporary style of the show.
Approval Junkie takes audiences on an engaging trip that ends in self-acceptance and healing. Salie closes with, “Don’t miss out on the kind of heartbreaks and disappointments that propel you. The things you think you’ve lost, like jobs and loves, and babies, either come back around or leave a fertile wake. And I hope you’ll care a lot about winning your own approval—enough to stretch yourself, appreciate yourself, and occasionally ... embarrass yourself.” Those are wonderful words to take in and leave with.
Audible Theatre’s Approval Junkie plays through Dec. 12 at the Minetta Lane Theatre (18 Minetta Lane, between MacDougal Street and Sixth Avenue). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 3 p.m. on Sunday. For more information and tickets, visit audible.com/minettalane.
