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PHOTO BY DON DOMAN

THE ONE IN 100. Joanna Horowitz takes a quick coffee break from rehearsing her new one-woman show “100 Heartbreaks” playing through March 1 at the Capitol Hill Arts Center in Seattle.

One-woman country music show is all about heartbreak

By Don Doman

I didn’t expect “100 Heartbreaks” to be perfect, I expected it to be fun and full of promise. For perfect I look to the 5th Avenue, Seattle Rep and a few other favorite theatres in Seattle I love. But “100 Heartbreaks” delivered at the Capitol Hill Arts Center. It was fun and full of promise and maybe only one or two heartbreaks away from perfection.

The one-woman country music show is about “picking up, breaking up and drinking up.” Joanna Horowitz created the persona of Charlane Tucker and her journey to Nashville and fame. Charlane is determined to move up the ladder of success one rung at a time, or rather, one heartbreak at a time. She just knows that if she can meet 100 men, fall in love, and have them leave her, then she will have the tragic life of a country singer with a suitcase full of songs to rely on.

In her spare time Horowitz works for the Seattle Rep in the PR department. As a struggling member of the acting arts community she has also worked at The Shack, the basement venue at the Capitol Hill Arts Center. The Shack is a blackbox space that can almost become anything. For “100 Heartbreaks” it became a sleazy country western bar, which sat about 40 people around small round tables with some red naugahyde booths on either end of the stage and two rows of folding chairs along the back wall. There were probably 80 people there for the performance. There were no empty seats, but there may have been people standing or wandering back and forth to the bar. A door on the back wall connected to a lounge where beer and mixed drinks could be purchased and brought out to the stage/production area.

Horowitz as Charlane made fun of country music, herself, and the focus required by anyone searching for fame and fortune. Charlane makes her entrance and sings a song and tells stories. She welcomed everyone to The Shack and mentioned that she brought her American Flag, which was hanging behind her. “I hang it vertically ‘cause you know stripes are thinning.” Charlane tells us about growing up poor in Kentucky, advice from her momma (You ain’t living if you ain’t losing!”), her father buying her a guitar from prison, her failed marriage (“He beat me blue.”), and her need for heartbreaks to make her a better country singer. Her ballad (“One Man Closer to Nashville”) describing each of her past 43 lovers was funny.

Eventually, she tells us about the man she met the night before. Uh, oh, trouble in paradise. She fell in love “somewhere between last call and first light.” She doesn’t know what to do and asks the audience for help…and then of course sings a song. “I’m staring at my glass half empty and all I’m seeing is my bed half full.”

In the end she thanks the crowd and runs out the back door, just off the stage, to catch a bus. Charlane could have come back for an encore or at least a final bow, but she chose to leave on a high note of grand applause.

“100 Heartbreaks” plays for two more weekends at the Capitol Hill Arts Center (www.capitolhillarts.com) at 1621 E. 12th in Seattle. Order tickets online at www.100heartbreaks.com.

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