Lisa Faith Phillips

We’ve all had a friend that’s been in the running for a job that requires a security clearance, so we all know what it’s like to see them scramble around trying to account for their every place of residence, foreign friend and possible moment of youthful indiscretion as part of the application process. In that, All-Nude College-Girl Revue or Why I Can’t Pass the Vetting—no, there’s not really any nudity—is a performance perfectly styled for D.C.

In the one-person show, Lisa Faith Phillips, who last appeared at the Capital Fringe Festival in 2008, recounts the many reasons why her post-Obama election victory plans to move to D.C. and work for the new administration would have been foiled by potential vetters. There are multiple arrests, a rich history of drug use, a stint as a stripper (albeit to pay for graduate studies at the London School of Economics) and the brief time she spent writing and performing scripts for phone-sex lines.

Phillips does well in weaving together the stories in a way that makes you think you’re sitting in a friend’s living room listening to them share some of the less commendable moments of their adolescence. She also humorously links otherwise disjointed events and shows how seemingly minor events (like getting cable TV as a child) can play a role in determining much more significant developments down the road (like getting arrested for smoking marijuana).

That said, the entire performance is all about her, and it’s hard to get past the feeling that she simply thought that personal stories about sex and drugs would be enough to entertain a paying audience for an hour. That she premised the whole thing on her fears that she’d never get a job in D.C. seemed to be an afterthought based on little more than a hope that she could appeal to a D.C. crowd. It’s not that personal stories can’t make good performances, but rather that they should hinge on something a little deeper than an inability to get a job.

Remaining performances:

Friday, July 20, 10:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 21, 5:15 p.m.
Sunday, July 22 2:00 p.m.

At The Shop at Fort Fringe, 607 New York Avenue