Eva Von Schnippisch is back – and this time she means show business! After becoming a double-agent, winning World War II and working for the British Secret Service for a decade, cabaret star Eva Von Schnippisch is ready to follow her dream of becoming the greatest actress in 1950s Hollywood - but her past keeps getting in her way and casting calls are packed with pretty strawberry blondes just like her. Can Eva fulfil her dream, keep the gangsters away and find true love?
She has taken her time perfecting the character.
How Eva Von Schnippisch Saved Hollywood is a joyful one-woman cabaret musical about the harsh realities of the 50s Tinseltown for fledgling starlets. Eva desperately wants to be a star even if acting may not be her true forte. By a stroke of luck Eva meets Marilyn Monroe and gets her big break when the film mogul Harvey Wienerstein invites her to his hotel suite to sit on his infamous casting couch. The encounter leaves Eva wondering why can’t a girl get ahead without giving head?
The fringe is jam packed with solo-performance shows, but rarely they as professionally executed as this one. The show is written and produced by Stephanie Ware who is an expressive cabaret singer-turned-spy-turned Hollywood starlet. You can tell that she has taken her time perfecting the character. She has impeccable comedic timing and a great voice for belting out a musical number every once in a while. She also has a suitably grumpy resting bitch face perfect for character comedy.
All Stephanie’s other characters are spot on as well, the Marlon Brando soundalike gangster boss Carpaccio, the sleazy film producer Harvey Wienerstein and the clueless Marilyn Monroe. The show has some of the best use of backing tracks I have ever seen, each sound effect landing perfectly on spot. She is an instantly likeable person with a bubbly personality and an infectious laugh.
Stephanie/Eva is also a perfect party hostess, greeting the audience, arranging tables to their liking, acknowledging a birthday party and making everyone feel welcome. The opening night at the Komedia was Stephanie’s first live performance with this material and the show got off to a slightly nervous start. There were a few bits and bobs that still need polishing, but with a bit more rehearsing, the show will be unstoppable.
So what happened to Eva, did she get everything she dreamed of? The show ends with a bang, perhaps the biggest bang in history, way too controversial to reveal here. Let’s just say that the femme-fatale lives up to her name.
