Posted on November 20, 2016, 10:02 pm, by Jack L. B. Gohn, under
The Big Picture.
The clog can be as simple as an explanation of behavior or motives that might be possible but just doesn’t seem likely. Sometimes it’s starker: an inconsistency that is never explained away, or, when the issue is sanctions against your client, an acknowledgment of wrongdoing that does not seem sincere enough. In the weeks leading up to the trial or hearing, you keep expecting that the client, properly though ethically prepared, will be able to explain the contradiction better, or will not only acknowledge an undeniable misdeed but do so in a way that demonstrates contrition, insight, and a determination to do better. If you were scripting it, you might find a way to knock that explanation or that contrite speech out of the park. But there are rules against actually putting words in your client’s mouth, and anyway, the clients who could best use being scripted this manner are always the least educable; even if you tried to train them, they would still tell the story their own inadequate way. And then judges and juries give you that expression.
With Valerie David, we go through denial, being dragged into a breast cancer diagnosis the day before a new job, enduring chemotherapy, losing her hair, losing some friends who couldn’t cope, and undergoing radiation as the last phase of the treatment. We hear about the loneliness, the quest for “sympathy sex,” the impact of chemically-induced menopause, the loss of career opportunities and energy, the support of friends, struggles with body image, weight issues, and, perhaps most important, “the magic potion of improv,” from which this performance self-evidently grows. David has a comic’s timing, a turn for sketch artistry, and a standup comedian’s comfort with making discomforting confessions.
Regular Everyman-goers know Deborah Hazlett and BEth Hylton well. These veteran members of the Everyman repertory group have been sharing the stage for years. For Hazlett and Hylton to elicit laughter from an audience in a funny show is truly like taking candy from a baby. And even when you can see some of the risible situations coming from a long way off, you’re going to laugh. The pathos – and there is some, amidst the laughter – will go down easier because the overall setting is so much fun.