ONCE: Pacific Northwest Premiere
A straight-talking, life affirming waif, Girl is played by the infinitely irresistible Olivia Nice, whose performance is the best part of this show.
She has two knock-out numbers, “The Hill” and “If You Want Me,” both heartfelt songs of longing and loss, and lovingly performed.
Nice is a remarkable actor. In “Once,” she transforms herself into a Slavic sorceress through posture, movement and expression. She’s not a big, bold, colorful witch, but a slight, somewhat dowdy Czech sprite with hunched shoulders, a sly wit and sudden extravagant gestures. Her loose limbs are natural and relaxed, moving with intention and unexpected grace. As Girl, Clari wears an old sweater and big boots, an oddly beautiful foreigner with unkempt brown hair framing a heart-shaped face and luminous, shadowed eyes that see and understand.
Newcomer Olivia Nice — whose acting training includes time at The Studio / New York — is an excellent performer with a strong emotional delivery that is never overplayed and always graceful. This is hard to achieve in a production that could overflow into territory of saccharine sentimentality. Ms. Nice elbows her way out of the obvious ingenue role and into something quite special, giving her character the opportunity to exercise a willful and humorous personality and, despite a less than ideal end result, never come off as the victim.
Olivia Nice is perfect as the pretty but not beautiful, provocatively inquisitive Gal...Nice is more than nice with her deceptively powerful voice and understated but precise performance.
