[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Pamela Walker’s new solo show, Little Big Mouth, as part of the Whitefire Theatre’s Solofest 2026.
The solo show Little Big Mouth seems at first to be entirely autobiographical. But once it begins and Pamela Walker becomes Penelope, it becomes clear that Penelope and her story, although perhaps similar in many ways to Pamela’s own, is a beautifully realized, charmingly quirky fiction. While the story spans decades of Penelope’s life and flits through timelines and places and moods, it is the pivotal memories of her life that hold us. Moments with grandmothers and granddaughters, choices made and sometimes regretted, love and losses, momentous triumphs and desperate lows. All the while, this person, this Penelope, seems to change her face along with her mood. An actor through and through. Tough one moment, bereft the next, loving tender, hilarious, and always utterly mesmerising.
The show is played as an anecdotal conversation. Penelope addresses the audience directly as if we were in the room with her, and because of this we are privy to her unbroken honesty, her unaffected and sometimes a little brutal truth. This sweetly open technique immediately pulls us into her world, and who could resist her!
Pamela Walker is a hugely accomplished actor. She is also a director and her writing skills are fully on show in this truly brilliant solo play. She becomes several characters, but as she puts them on like a costume, she is always there with them, using them to speak to us, hiding a little behind them as she tries to share who she truly is. Or is she searching as much as we are for herself amongst the roles she has played? Perhaps. But what is created is a gorgeously warm, compelling person, flirting with her life, remembering why she was who she used to be.
It’s a wonderful performance that feels as if it’s hardly a performance at all. I love solo plays the most when the actors are indistinguishable from who they portray. No affectations, no mugging, no code switching. Just someone reaching out and feeling their lives right in front of us. Not therapy, just truth. We are all so similar, aren’t we? We can all, especially as women, connect on many levels of fear, of grief, of anger, and most especially of love. Perhaps the men in the audience can see the women in their lives through a different lens, also. We can take each other for granted as much as we can ourselves, after all.
Little Big Mouth confronts what we are told to do, pressured to become, resigned to accept and pushes back. Within the inward gaze, there are many very astute observations about a life. I know quite a few actors, and it always seems to me that they are some of the most emotionally healthy people I have ever known. All that examination of character. All that work on ‘self’ and the interior. They must face themselves so much more than the rest of us ever have to. For them, it’s either rip off that mask or die trying. Sounds dramatic, but more and more, aren’t we all beginning to understand that need to lose the bullshit before we burn ourselves up?
Pamela Walker is a wonderful writer and an incredible actor. Every single moment of this beautiful show was poignant, funny, profound, true and wildly entertaining… that’s hard to do. To make an audience think and laugh, and see themselves without even noticing is a magical feat…bravo!!
I have been told that Pamela Walker has been asked to return to the Whitefire Theatre for an encore performance of Little Big Mouth and I am thrilled to hear it!
I highly recommend that you see Little Big Mouth and the Whitefire Theatre or anywhere else it may be performed!