Jannica Olin’s one woman show, (IM)PERFEKT, is an exposé of the personal and professional angst engendered by the onset of the incurable condition, Alopecia, which is the sudden, progressive loss of hair leading, in some, to utter baldness. She is onstage when the audience enters. As the crowd settles in, she goes through a fetching routine of preparation—costume, makeup (in an imaginary mirror), the choosing of the right shoes—and so on.
When checking in for the show, each patron is given a pen and a piece of paper, with the instruction to write down the immediate perception of the person on stage. The papers are then deposited in a pink basket. Just before the actual start of action, she selects a few and reads them to the audience, which, as might be expected, run the shallow gamut from likes to dislikes, from praise to criticism. It is an intriguing way to open the show. She goes on to impersonate a giddy sort of influencer named Kacey Kash, before disposing of the character to tell her story, which is absorbing.
The sudden loss of her long blonde Scandinavian hair was devastating for Jannica as a performer in Los Angeles. It had severe personal, professional, and emotional ramifications. In the approximately sixty-minute performance, she gives a frank exposé of the meaning and importance of hair for one actor living and working in the entertainment industry. She tells the story with passion and humor with the help of no fewer than a half a dozen wigs as props.
(IM)PERFEKT is a great title for this solo show, which won her a Producers’ Encore Award in the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2019. She packed the house at the Lounge Theatre’s fifty seat venue for a one performance stand. It was well received by an adoring audience.
(IM)PERFEKT is written and performed by Jannica Olin with direction and development by Jessica Lynn Johnson.
Paul Myrvold's Theatre Notes 