Broadway veteran Jessica Hendy finds ways to explain her husband’s mental illness to their young son Adam in her new one-woman musical, Walking with Bubbles, at the AMT Theater.
Perhaps because one must dodge homeless people to get to the theater the time seems right for the new one-woman musical, Walking with Bubbles. Created, written and performed by Jessica Hendy, and based on her journey as a single mother rebuilding her life after her husband Adam’s mental illness and homelessness, this female-driven narrative is inspiring and may well impart hope to others in crisis.
Hendy’s moxie is apparent from the opening, as she dashes down the aisle and rushes onto the stage, carrying Whole Food bags and a knapsack slung over her shoulder. She sits down on a backless bench, takes a deep breath, and breaks the fourth wall:
Hendy, who made her Broadway debut as Grizabella in the original Broadway production of Cats, belts out a song from her musical Walking with Bubbles.
Getting lunch from Whole Foods at Columbus Circle isn’t usually my choice. It’s chaos. But Beckett loves it. And it’s the perfect way to kick off our day, ’cause I’m not sure if it’s gonna be a good one or bad one. So at least we could have a good start.
Hendy’s narrative zigs and zags between present and past, moving from New York to Ohio to the Virgin Islands. She doesn’t whitewash anything, or anybody, including Adam, as she describes how their 7-year-old son Beckett (nicknamed “Bubbles”) immediately runs up to a homeless man in Central Park and gleefully calls him “Daddy.”
Hendy, in a scene from her new musical Walking with Bubbles, based on a harrowing true story that she and her son have lived. Photographs by Aiden Bezark and Richard Hess.
As Hendy dives into the first of seven songs she performs during the show, there’s no trace of synthetic emotion in her voice as she delivers each line:
He thinks you rule the world
You’re super-dad who saves the day
Life might be a little unconventional
Who needs normal anyway
Who knows what the day might hold
What dragons I’ll have to slay
I’m on the tip of my toes
But for him it’s just Saturday.
Hendy’s singing buttresses her narrative considerably. She’s a Broadway veteran—and a real belter, who made her Broadway debut as Grizabella in the closing company of Cats at the Winter Garden. And with Brianna Kothari Barnes’s original music and lyrics ideally suited to her voice, Hendy gets to show off her impressive pipes.
While her voice may be her ace, Hendy is a charming raconteur as well, as she describes surviving her husband’s downward spiral into mental illness and homelessness. After college she moved to New York, a young woman from the Midwest pursuing her dream to become an actress. She met Adam at a New Year’s brunch with friends, and they immediately clicked. They soon became the perfect couple: she was a Broadway actress; he was a writer. They married two years later, and though he suffered from “winter blues,” he was the love of her life, and they just “muscled through.”
If the show is a complex mixture of exhilarating highs and vile lows, Mark Halpin’s set is simplicity itself: backless benches arranged around the stage, with a robin’s-egg blue screen used as a backdrop.
Hendy shares that one of the turning points in Adam’s illness was when his “winter blues” morphed into full-blown “clinical depression.” Even though medication helped for a while, Hendy explains that Adam was hell-bent on moving out of New York, not only for his health, but to start their family. Hendy, who was performing in the Broadway musical Amour, was at first flabbergasted. But, when badgered again and again by Adam, she chose her marriage over career.
Indeed, they moved to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, trading “bagels and bodegas / for beaches and breezes by the sea.” They had a son, Beckett. But the magical time didn’t last. Adam’s mental health deteriorated again. And, in a heart-wrenching song called “St. Thomas,” Hendy compares her husband’s progressing disease to a tropical monsoon.
“With Brianna Kothari Barnes’s original music and lyrics ideally suited to her voice, Hendy gets to show off her impressive pipes.”
If St. Thomas proved to be less than paradise, their next move to Ohio, where Hendy’s family lived, brought their marriage to a crashing halt. One evening, Adam ordered her to leave, and she did, taking Beckett with her. In the show’s most poignant song, “A Man I Used to Know,” she fully confronts the harsh reality of her husband’s mental illness.
It’s hardly a spoiler to say that Hendy soon got a divorce from Adam. And, after saving money, she and Beckett moved back to New York. Although Adam followed them to the big city, he would eventually move back to St. Thomas, leaving her and Beckett to begin a new life without him.
Hendy fittingly wraps up her show with the song, “One Page at a Time.” Listening to it, one can only be terribly moved by Hendy’s brave attempt to reinvent herself—and move forward.
The AMT Theater’s production of Walking with Bubbles runs at the AMT Theater (354 W. 45th St.) through June 18. Evening performances are at 8 p.m.; matinees are at 2 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit walkingwithbubbles.com.
Book: Jessica Hendy
Music & Lyrics: Brianna Kothari Barnes
Direction: Richard Hess
Sets: Mark Halpin
Lighting: Aiden Bezark
