Emmy-nominated actress Naomi Grossman, best known as “Pepper” in American Horror Story, presents a darkly fabulous and profoundly revealing one-person show at the Skylight Theatre
By John Lavitt
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 06-11-2023
From crashing the Red Bull car into a shopping mall to masquerading as an Argentinian Spanish teacher, American actress Naomi Grossman did just about everything to survive before finally landing her big shot in Hollywood. When she landed the role of Pepper, she had to shave her head to become the pinhead and accentuate the extremities of her appearance. A microcephalic woman and former performer with Fräulein Elsa’s Cabinet of Curiosities committed to Briarcliff Manor in American Horror Story Asylum, Pepper has been called the most physically unattractive character on television.
What proves to be ironic is that when you watch Naomi Grossman in her one-person show, American Whore Story, at the Skylight Theatre, she is anything but unattractive. In reality, Naomi Grossman is charismatic, super cute, and quite sexy. Theatre producer Kate Atkinson and documentary filmmaker Sarah Anthony have partnered with Grossman to bring American Whore Story to the stage under their AWS Entertainment Group banner. Directed by multiple Ovation Award-winner Richard Israel, American Whore Story is one more example of people finding her to be special, attractive, and worth their time and investment.
However, one wonders whether the actress even knows this about herself. After all, the painful heart of her show is about her father’s rejection and the lasting legacy of that traumatic experience in her life. Affecting everything from her driving desire to achieve to her twisted relationships with men, such a childhood trauma is the corrosive force that haunts this woman’s life. When you consider the pain of that childhood rejection, it is incredible that she did not embrace a variety of addictions as an escape plan. As Dr. Gabor Maté writes about the relationship between substance use disorders and childhood trauma, “The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain.”
Despite the pain, Naomi Grossman never fell into the pit of addictive disorders beyond making remarkably bad choices regarding the men she chose to love. Focusing on good looks instead of good character, she chose men who could not help her heal that original trauma. In truth, they only made things worse through careless stupidity and ugly betrayals. However, as you listen to these stories of woe, Naomi Grossman’s performance is not reduced to a feel-sorry-for-me tragedy. It is not a bummer to watch the actress reveal the travails of her life because she is innately clever, funny, and fun. Rather than feel sorry for herself, her first instinct is to laugh at herself, and she wants her audience to laugh with her.
As Sarah Anthony describes her friend, “Naomi has a Lily Tomlin-level stage presence and humor. She’s an accomplished yogi; her physicality and timing are as dynamic as her writing is sharp. We’re excited for audiences to meet the real Naomi Grossman – a whip-smart, one-of-a-kind firecracker.” Indeed, one only hopes these qualities apply to Naomi’s romantic life today. After all, she deserves so much more than she has received in the past.
Ultimately, the success of American Whore Story is to reveal a profound intersection between childhood trauma and adult fame. Everyone in Hollywood, at least when they first arrive in this glitzy town of broken-down dreams and false promises, believes that fame and success will cure them. However, fame and success do not heal past trauma or relieve an ingrained sense of unworthiness. If that were the case, River Phoenix, Whitney Houston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Brittany Murphy, Heath Ledger, and so many more would still be alive today.
In American Whore Story, Naomi Grossman points out that, although Hollywood fortune and fame are lovely, they do not replace the inner work that must be done to address trauma. The courage and fortitude of this one-person show is to take the audience on this journey to the point of realization. In the end, there is no end because we must continue living for another day. Thus, it is our choice what to do with that day and how we choose to live. As the show ends and she takes her final bows, we are grateful that it feels as if Naomi Grossman has made a choice to celebrate her talents and value the rare gift of a human life.
Photos from American Whore Story by Devin Dygert