This one-woman show about travelling the world to find a moment of peace tries hard but suffers from too much content and too few moments of empathy.
Gaby Ford sounds like shes had an interesting life: she moved from New York to Italy to teach dance, tried acting, became a voice-over performer for porn, then searched for her soul in India and now travels the world with the multi-lingual theatre company she founded. This is all fascinating stuff for a memoir, but trying to pack it into a one-hour show, aided only by a tub of sound effect munchies, is far too ambitious.
Directed by Dyanne White, A Broad Abroad races through potentially funny scenes and as such fails to fully engage its audience. Without hearing her life story, one can tell that Ford is a natural performer, but her energy is not enough to carry this show through excruciating audience participation and self-indulgent digressions. Working too earnestly for both laughter and sympathy, this broad abroad ends up seeming a little pathetic.
