Famous for Being Not Famous

Liz Kingsman's One Woman Show is a monologue about writing a monologue to chase celebrity. It's working.

- JACKSON MCHENRY

ONE WOMAN SHOW is at Greenwich House Theater through August 11.

"I FIND IT ALL So embarrassing," Liz Kingsman says about the triumph of her one-woman show, One Woman Show, which is fitting because the piece itself is built around the tensions of self-aggrandizement and self-deprecation. The Australian-born Londoner plays a fame-chasing character who has decided to deploy the formula of Fleabag and stages a monologue called Wildfowl about a sex-crazed, over-the-top "relatable" woman who works a quirky job at a wetlands trust and hits rock bottom. One Woman Show has, in fact, made Kingsman successful: It got noticed at a London festival, was acclaimed in the West End, toured in Australia, and has now arrived in New York (with a few edits).

Your character in the show really wants to be famous, and now she's made it to New York. Does actual fame change the show?

In a way, the play only really made sense in the first room it was performed in, which was this festival in a damp place under the railway station. But I think I can still buy that this woman is never going to be satisfied, so I can always find a way for her to be unhappy about the place she's in.

Did you see a lot of one-woman shows as research?