Pepper Slit’s Outlandish Charm Wears Thin

Chloe Troast, the co-writer and star of “Pepper Slit: Live in Her Living Room,” is probably best known for having been a featured cast member on the 49th season of “Saturday Night Live.” Upon learning she wouldn’t be included in the following season in 2024, Ms. Troast, then 27, issued a humble, gracious post on TikTok — where else? — declaring that the long-running series had felt “like a second home,” and expressing love and gratitude.That background lends a certain poignance to “Pepper Slit,” a one-act, cabaret-like piece that Ms. Troast conceived and wrote with Sam Blumenfeld, another New York-based comedian and a producer, now running at the East Village Basement. The title character, played by Ms. Troast, is introduced by Charlie O’Connor, who will accompany her on piano and other instruments, as a “darling” of 1930s cinema, a “starlet” of ‘50s Broadway, and “a sex symbol of several seventies social circles” — quite a run, especially given the relative primitiveness of cosmetic surgery back then.Alas, for the past three decades, Pepper has been relegated to performing in her living room, a cozy space — the production accommodates only 35 audience members per night — that scenic designer Rodri Hernandez Martinez has furnished with all manner of memorabilia and junk, from an eye chart to a “gum wall,” a collection of chewed wads that a lucky viewer will be asked to scrape in one of the show’s interactive moments.Pepper appears before us looking like a glammed-up version of Mrs. Lovett from “Sweeney Todd,” with cherry red pigtails and garish makeup, costumed by Ricky Reynoso to suggest a cross between a rag doll and a gaudy flapper. Ms. Troast has cited as inspiration divas such as Liza Minnelli, Eartha Kitt, Elaine Stritch, and Cher, as well as another Stephen Sondheim classic, “Follies,” which includes one of the late, great Stritch’s signature tunes, “I’m Still Here.”In a statement about “Pepper Slit,” Ms. Troast praised “Follies” as “a classic preteen tale about the decay of female beauty and fading fame within an unscrupulous industry of vaudeville and burlesque.” She was being ironic, presumably, in describing the musical as tween entertainment, but it’s a telling joke, as the humor peppering Pepper’s journey — which also includes songs, and a few winking dance numbers — tends to be more sophomoric.We meet our heroine as she is about to be evicted from her apartment, after receiving notices for “one or six years”; she’s not sure, she tells a horrified Charlie, when he realizes she is passing out the letters as napkins while serving audience members shots of egg cream from a soda siphon. It’s one of several unabashedly, winningly goofy bits that seem to bode well for the show early on.Unfortunately, the silliness grows less inspired as “Pepper Slit” lurches along, its protagonist pouring out her life story as she tries to determine which mementos to keep and which to throw out. A trio of movers played by Mr. Blumenfeld, Gus Laughlin, and Josh Nasser, who each juggle a smattering of additional roles, help Mr. O’Connor egg her on, dressed in uniforms bearing their company’s profanity-pocked name.Not surprisingly, Ms. Troast and her collaborators trade heavily in bawdiness; the leading lady also tries to lend elements of pathos, and she isn’t afraid to get creepy. Pepper recalls her big break, when as a six-year-old she was spotted on the beach by an old man who cast her in a commercial for coconut rum; apparently encouraged by the geezer, she imbibed so much of the product that she landed in a hospital. Later, partly through flashbacks, we’re regaled with career highlights and disappointments that sound similarly spurious, and we meet a string of famous lovers who eventually abandoned Pepper. A fling with Bob Fosse is recounted with glimmers of wit, with the legendary director and choreographer barking out dance moves such as, “Sex with no hands, birth the baby, put it back where it came from.”Of course, part of what made Fosse’s work so sexy was his capacity for discretion and reserve, and these qualities are lacking in “Pepper Slit,” right up to a protracted ending sequence to nods to “The Wizard of Oz.” That wouldn’t be a problem if the show were simply funnier, but for me, at least, Pepper’s story ultimately didn’t have enough zing.

Pepper Slit’s Outlandish Charm Wears Thin

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