Twice during the last theater season, Bridget Bean demonstrated a prodigious talent as an actor of dramatic monologues. First was her appearance in Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads at Gorilla Theatre. Bean played Rosemary, a shallow but well-meaning woman whose neighbor was accused of murder. Chattering nervously, mixing her revelations with gardening lore, Bean was the picture of denial — as a means of mental survival. She was even better in the much more demanding Shirley Valentine, also at Gorilla Theatre (that ape loves them Brits). There she was for two full acts, a middle-aged woman whose life of quiet desperation stood to be transformed — or not — by a last-ditch Greek vacation. Not everyone can hold the stage all by her lonesome for two full acts. But Bean did, luminously.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2006.