Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Gwyneth Goes Skiing
Pleasance and Awkward Productions
Genre: Comedy, LGBTQ+ Theatre, Satire, Theatre
Venue: Pleasance
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Gwyneth goes skiing in Utah. Gwyneth has a collision with a retired optometrist. Gwyneth goes to court.
Review
The title says it all.
The fact that a too-huge chunk of Western civilization can guess what Gwyneth Goes Skiing is about without further description is indicative of the fascination a certain sector of the public has with Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar-winning actress and founder of lifestyle company Goop, which in 2020 offered an overly expensive candle called This Smells Like My Vagina that has since, alas for the curious, been discontinued. Paltrow claims the media sensationalized what she intended to be a feminist statement, but it’s difficult to imagine she didn’t know exactly what she was doing. The candle sold out within hours.
Moral of the story: No one puts Paltrow’s light under a bushel. Not at those prices and profit margins.
Paltrow exudes such cool perfection that any crack in the armor tends to delight gays and gossipmongers, and yes, those two groups contain significant overlap. How else to explain that just last month when one of her houseguests in the Hamptons had an attack of diarrhea and ruined a set of her bed linens, the story made the news, including stories in Variety and New York Magazine?
Gwyneth Goes Skiing harks back to runs of a different sort, a 2016 ski-slope collision between Paltrow and retired optometrist Terry Sanderson at the ritzy Deer Valley resort in Park City, Utah. Sanderson later sued Paltrow and the case finally made its way to the courts in 2023, where Paltrow countersued for $1 on principle. The highly watched trial lasted two-and-a-half weeks before the jury reached its decision, and now, just a year and a bit later, Awkward Productions is bringing the whole absurd story to the Edinburgh Fringe and making its audience members sit in the jury box.
If only all courtroom dramas were so hilarious.
Linus Karp and Joseph Martin are the sole two official cast members but the clever use of various audience members, puppets, video clips and a hilariously grumpy stagehand (a crowd favorite) energize the stage and provide laughs aplenty. Wondrously silly Martin may have the less-thankful part as the grumpy Sanderson but nonetheless makes a full and satisfying meal of it, and Karp reigns supreme in a Gwynning performance, simultaneously frosty and warm, like a certain candle no longer available to most mere mortals.
Now for a bit of cross-examination. To paraphrase another Academy Awards legend, five-time Academy Awards host Johnny Carson, the fact is there’s 60 minutes of fizzy entertainment here squeezed into 80. The show is simply too long. Judicious cutting could work wonders, most likely in a few of the overlong courtroom moments. Also, because the lip-synced musical numbers are great fun, it is noticeable how long it takes for the first one to arrive.
But don’t be put off by the show’s slight imperfections. Gwyneth Goes Skiing is a howling delight. I wish it well, and so will you.
