Review: ‘Baby Bipolar’ at 7 Stages exudes DIY charm despite a familiar structure

There is an inescapable vulnerability to autobiographical performance, and to embrace that vulnerability takes a courage naturally conducive to bold storytelling. Maria Mainelli’s sharp, one-woman show, Baby Bipolar, through July 17 at 7 Stages, benefits not only from this courage but from a self-aware wit and affable charm that helps it sing from within the confines of a predictable structure.

The play tells the story of Mainelli’s diagnosis with bipolar disorder and her subsequent struggles to accept her diagnosis. Lacking in artifice or pretension, there is a palpable DIY charm to the whole affair. Baby Bipolar occupies the 90-seat black box at the back of the theater, and the stage is sparsely decorated with a few chairs, a projection screen and a mattress piled with multicolored stuffed animals. Those stuffed animals, alongside blow-up dolls with googly eyes, stand in for major people in Mainelli’s life.

This leaves only Mainelli’s ebullient performance as the anchor of the show, and she handles the challenge well. Her sense of humor is suffused with a distinctly Gen Z-style of self-effacing, occasionally fatalistic sarcasm which is particularly relatable to audience members who have shared some version of her experiences. When she makes jokes like “I cannot recommend enough having a bestie with matching mental illnesses,” the audience’s laughter rings with the sound of recognition.

Overall, the show is quite funny. Mainelli is more than willing to poke fun at her own past behavior, but never in a way that makes the audience less likely to extend empathy. She does not invite the audience to laugh at her but with her at the absurdity of her experiences, which makes the tonal switch-ups in its second half all the more effective.

But there’s a level of restraint that does not entirely serve the production. Mainelli organizes the show around the five stages of grief, each stage representing distinct acts, and, while the impulse to put some kind of framework in place and give shape to real events is a reasonable one, this feels too linear a framework to contain a play about such a messy process.

Still, each stage of grief is portrayed well, with Mainelli and Director Fiona Campbell pulling out as many theatrical tools as their limited budget allows. Slideshows showing texts with Mainelli’s loved ones and unhinged social media posts break up each segment and provide both welcome levity and a less-filtered glimpse into Mainelli’s personal life. Having Mainelli remain silent during her depressive episode alongside her pre-recorded voice-over is a particularly inspired touch.

What really holds the entire production together, however, is the amount of heart at its core. Despite most of Baby Bipolar centering only on Mainelli, it ends with an emphasis on shared experience and the power of mutual witnessing. When Mainelli talks about the impulse to share her experiences so that others know they are not alone, it’s hard not to be moved by the emotion her voice. The work highlights the importance of understanding that our struggles do not have to isolate us — and that isolation is often the biggest roadblock to healing. 

Where and When

Baby Bipolar is at 7 Stage’s blackbox theater through July 17. Tickets, $21.
1105 Euclid Ave. NE.

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Luke Evans is an Atlanta-based writer, critic and dramaturg. He covers theater for ArtsATL and Broadway World Atlanta and has worked with theaters such as the Alliance, Actor’s Express, Out Front Theatre and Woodstock Arts. He’s a graduate of Oglethorpe University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree, and the University of Houston, where he earned his master’s.