Orlando Fringe 2025
SOLOVELA, AN IMPROVISED SOLO TELENOVELA
No Inside Voice
Genre: Comedy, Improvised Theatre, Sketch Comedy, Solo Performance, Solo Show, Stand-Up
Venue: Brown Venue
Festival: Orlando Fringe
Low Down
Light and breezy entertainment like all good telenovelas should be
Review
Solovela is a solo improvised telenovela performed by Diane Jorge. Jorge picks one audience member each night, interviews them, and makes an absurd telenovela episode for one night only. Expect every soap opera trope in the book: lost long brothers, bitter enemies, massive fights, and over-acting galore. In our performance, we were welcomed to watch “Disfraces de Amor” (Costumes of Love). Our chosen audience member was a dresser for Universal Studios whose partner was a costume runner. Jorge extracts a few important details from them and off she goes. She takes costumes from her Mary Poppins bag of props and introduces character after character of soap opera drama. It’s silly and well-performed. Myself, the audience, and Jorge were all laughing in a joyful shared moment of over-theatrical delight.
Jorge’s greatest talent lies in her audience interactivity. She is witty and reads the audience to filth. To choose her audience member, she goes around the entire audience checking who looks interesting, making quips about them, before selecting whomever she finds most interesting. I would have liked to see more audience interactivity during the telenovela. Jorge is a natural in crowd work and audience engagement. More prompts and audience assistance may push the comedy even further.
The show only clocks in at roughly 30-40 minutes. I wonder if the show ran longer, at what point the absurdity of the improv and the tropes would eventually collapse inwards. The short runtime and improvised nature do the show a favor in preventing anything from becoming stale. That said, I am curious how successful repeat visits to Jorge’s telenovela world would be.
Jorge is having fun on stage and is an absolute pleasure to watch. It is light and breezy entertainment like a good telenovela should be (and much appreciated after a long day of seeing and performing shows at the Orlando Fringe). Let us all hope “Disfraces de Amor” gets picked up for a whole season. If not, at least we have Jorge to keep us entertained.
