PAGING DR. DRAMA, STAT! VITALS NOT STABLE

Nursing Is My Life was a heart-breaker for me.

Charley Karlotta has spent decades as a registered nurse, raising her family, and dreaming of one day doing a show proclaiming how “nursing is her life.”

Karlotta is a petite elfin of a person, and you cannot but be charmed by her, as she gushes sweetness like the Exxon Valdez did oil. There are stories she tells about her time as a nurse that are both fascinating and infuriating, and she dispenses dashes of information that are jolting, such as nurses accumulating more on-the-job injuries than police.

There is certainly an interesting show in all this. However, the show I saw at the Upstairs @ El Centro is not it.

Right off the bat, Karlotta is not an actress. In depicting other characters, she displayed none of the actor’s tricks for quickly slipping into another persona – no distinct mannerism, no vocal variants, no alterations of posture or facial expression. Karlotta’s “method” is simply to cross the stage and sit in a different chair – a device which becomes stupefying after the first dozen repetitions.

The show also includes a number of faux musical interludes. I can’t tell you how many, because I stopped counting at ten… or maybe twelve.  I lost track.

These were short musical selections taken from well-known tunes by Dolly Parton, Queen, and others, which Karlotta has inserted her own lyrics into – concerning nursing, of course. But Karlotta is neither an actress nor singer. Used sparingly, this device might have been humorous; however, its overuse was like a rag soaked in chloroform held over my face.

All the wonderful stories, all her remarkable facts sink from sight beneath the quicksand of Karlotta’s monotone delivery, and what is heartbreaking to me is that it was all avoidable. That is, if Karlotta had had a capable director or a producer.

It doesn’t matter that she’s not a trained actress; you work with that by introducing intonation, rhythm, pacing, and emphasis. That’s not hard, that’s what a director is there for.

You cut what doesn’t work. Get rid of the chair and all that crossing back and forth business, edit or lose the revised songs. Right there, you trim 10 minutes, and with a running time over an hour, trimming is needed.

Karlotta tells us at length about her childhood, how unsupportive her parents were, her longing to be an entertainer, she bemoans her lack of confidence, her bad marriage, and working as a real estate agent.

Why?

The title of the show is Nursing Is My Life, it is not My Life Is My Life.  A capable director would have molded this show and kept it focused, while cutting another fifteen minutes out.

I know reading what I’ve written here would be painful for Karlotta, but it is not meant to be hurtful. Somewhere in the mess I saw, there is a show, even a good one.

I suspect Karlotta has talent that she is not embracing. I construe this from observing her musical director and keyboard accompanist, Andy Gladbach, who shares the stage with Karlotta, providing the tunes and overflowing with personality. He is also her son.

As a performer, Karlotta needs to work towards her strengths and acknowledge her weaknesses. If she does, then those very weaknesses can be made into strengths.

During the fifties, stand-up comic Foster Brooks was an industry joke, a bad joke. Brooks was a drunk, who’d show up to gigs so sozzled he’d forget punch lines, confuse set-ups. Soon, no one would book him. At rock bottom, Brooks took the cure. He sobered up and worked like a dog. He had a new act. He played a “loveable lush.”  Brooks became one of the most successful comics in the business, headlining in Vegas, appearing on The Tonight Show, and never had another drink.

Steven Wright realized he was somewhat “slow of speech.” He built his whole routine around that trait, and is one of the most popular stand-up comics in the country.

Karlotta should be Karlotta.

A good director’s duty to those they’re working with is, first and foremost, to play the midwife and get the best performance possible from them. A good producer’s job is to fight tooth and nail to make a show the best it can be, before it goes before an audience.

Nursing Is My Life suffered from the absence of those, and if that’s not heartbreaking, I don’t know what is.

Nursing Is My Life
Upstairs @ El Centro, 1103B North El Centro Ave
part of the Hollywood Fringe
75 minutes
ended on June 29, 2025
for show info, visit Nursing Is My Life
for more info, visit Charley Karlotta