'Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright' Off-Broadway review — a once debt-ridden diva finds her dividends

Read our review of Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright off Broadway, a solo comedy show written and performed by the niece of John Travolta at the SoHo Playhouse.

Summary

• Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright is a solo comedy show by Nicole Travolta about her journey to get out of credit card debt
• A highlight of the show is Travolta’s impersonations of clients and celebrities
• The show relatably and humorously addresses the temptations of consumer culture
• The show is recommended for fans of confessional comedy

Being a Travolta is not a get-out-of-debt-free card. “Nepo-niece is not the same as a nepo baby,” actress/comedian Nicole Travolta informs her audience before adding, “But I would have made a great nepo baby.” After an earlier SoHo Playhouse run and a tour, Nicole Travolta is back for an encore run of her one-woman show Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright, co-written with Paula Christensen and directed by Margarett Perry.

Nicole starts by amusingly recounting clumps of her childhood, quickly getting the Travolta gags out of the way: her uncle’s Saturday Night Live disco dance and the memory of riding his bedroom-supplied airplane. Also, she’s not a Scientologist. But as she journeys into her parents' split (her father, Sam, being the “cheaper Travolta” compared to John) and her then-husband confronting her credit card spending, the show pivots into darker territory about the relatable humiliation of debt and the unsettling, yet darkly comedic, tribulations of doing customer service at a spray-tan salon.

She does not gloss over the stigma of compulsive buying. Spangling her arms with Nordstrom, Victoria's Secret, and Chanel shopping bags like a Christmas tree, Nicole recollects the carefree days where she equated purchases with self-worth. As she itemizes her obscene wedding purchases, she reflects what easy prey she was to the shopping industry complex. Her care with the details makes her descent all the more heartbreaking. Late in the show, she reenacts a gruff pawnbroker posing the question, “Do you want the cash or the memories?” as he pries off the jewel of her grandmother’s engagement ring.

Her most remarkable asset is her impressions, not just for the precision of her mannerisms, but also her acuity in grounding them in nerve-wracking memories. Some scenarios are lighthearted: When one of her early spray-tan clients turns out to be a producer for Saturday Night Live, Nicole can’t help but showboat her virtuoso impressions of Jennifer Aniston in a desperate bid for job security. Others are more gruesome, like her landlord (a zealous Christian math teacher) and a reproaching ex-husband. Her celebrity impressions, sometimes applied to cover clients' identities, run the gamut from Jennifer Coolidge to Carrie Bradshaw to a cross between Marlon Brando and Marge Simpson’s chainsmoking sibling to a creepy, Patrick Bateman-esque client who ushers her into a horror movie plot.

Scott Bogle’s sound design works like silk to punctuate her storytelling with music cues, the headache-inducing door bangs that herald debt collectors, and the voice of God (not really, it’s J.G. Wentworth debt relief, and it's not a deus ex machina). You may not be a Travolta nepo-niece, but Nicole knows how to put you in her shoes.

Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright summary

Having the last name Travolta does not mean automatic financial stability, nor does kissing Charlie Sheen in the canceled TV show Anger Management. Actress Nicole Travolta’s one-woman show explores the time where she had to spray-tan her escape path from thousands in credit card debt. Her road is also paved with abandonment issues, divorce, shopacholic-ism, papers aggressively served by American Express, and a revolting spray-tanning clientele that includes an obnoxious homeowner with a collapsing chandelier and a maybe-serial killer.

What to expect at Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright

Get ready to share your credit score. Seriously, did you check your credit score lately? If not for your financial health, do it for the show. Be prepared to shout your credit score at Nicole in unison with the rest of the audience. My seatmate gasped when Nicole effectively used the audience shoutouts to segue into a reveal of her former credit score: 350. Nicole laughed and pointed at my seatmate’s audible shock, “You’re right! It’s crazy!”

The show runs approximately 80 minutes with no intermission.

What audiences are saying about Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright

In its earlier SoHo Playhouse run, Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright earned an 86% audience approval score on the review aggregator Show-Score. That site's members and reviewers at the show's other venues found the show entertaining, funny, and clever.

• “Travolta has an engaging kinetic energy and connects easily with her audience. Many can easily relate to the urge to spend money they don’t have through the easy extension of credit.” - BroadwayWorld critic Steve Murray, on the Gateway Theater run
• “Nicole is a strong performer with presence and comic timing. She reminds me of Kaley Cuoco, a comic actor with a je ne sais quoi quality that makes her appealing to almost everyone. Even in the most jarring moments, with props and screens interrupting the flow of her monologue, Nicole keeps your mind from wandering.” - The American critic Olivia McLaren, on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe run
• “It felt like the first few chapters of a great memoir. Her impressions were so good! She had me hooked because when she admitted her 350 credit score, I really felt the blow. She seems very genuine and humble (maybe humbled by her experiences) so I was totally engaged with her journey.” - My +1 at the show

Read more audience reviews of Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright on Show-Score.

Who should see Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright

• If you like relatable comedy in the vein of Taylor Tomlinson, Doing Alright will be your style.
• For people of all expertise levels looking to comprehend the financial industry, Travolta critiques the consumerist culture and confusing banking jargon that enabled her compulsive buying disorder. As a script note from the now-closed Broadway musical The Queen of Versailles reads, “[American] culture [...] mistakes accumulation for meaning.”
• Nicole references her IMDb credits in Two and a Half Men and Anger Management, offering curious fans a glimpse into the Hollywood industry.
• Blue-collar actors may know all too well the unglamorous nature of the acting profession, and they may be somewhat seen by the fact that, even for a Travolta, acting gigs don’t equal stability.

Learn more about Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright off Broadway

With her trusty spray tan gun and celebrity impersonations, Nicole Travolta’s confessional comedy show is doing pretty well. A once debt-ridden diva has found her dividends.

Learn more and get Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright tickets on New York Theatre Guide. Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright is at the SoHo Playhouse through May 10.

Photo credit: Nicole Travolta Is Doing Alright off Broadway. (Photos by Joan Marcus)