I am against the One-Man-Show.

Ellen, Melissa and I had tickets to see the play "Line" in the Village this past week (apparently we were in the Village, anyway- I thought we were in Harlem. Either way this sentence makes me seem really cool.) When we got there, though, a 85- to 90-year-old woman, the owner of the establishment, informed us that the lead actor was sick, so "you'll be watching this other one instead." The other one? A one-man-show starring Spatz Donovan. Yeahhhh Spatz. There were seven people in the theatre, so us, and four other people. And it was the saddest, most fascinating and simultaneously boring, bizarre thing I've ever seen. He impersonated all the old comedic geniuses, like Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and about 18 other dead white men whose names I'd never heard, switching hats in between characters and smearing greasy streaks of clown paint on his face. This obviously meant nothing to us, since we'd never heard of most of these people, and could care less about their comedic legacies. Along with Spatz's impressions of the comedians' particular style of laughing and gesture-making (there is something profane about laughter on a stage), he would sing sad songs ("You're the funny man," he sang, "all alone"), and exhort us to "remember the old clowns, who inspired your sarcastic, mean-spirited comedians of today." He broke character several times throughout the performance, at one point saying "Isn't this sad? This is what happens when old hippies stay in the Village too long...all those drugs" and at another point stopping to ask, "...Are you having fun?" Yes, yes we nodded reassuringly. No, no not at all. Except insofar as knowledge of your existence makes my own seem comparatively new, promising, and as of yet unwasted?


Although, I will say, I find it sort of hilarious that at one point he turned his pants' pocket inside out and said, "Look, a one-eared elephant." Come on, that's kind of funny.

I'm not going to lie to you, I'm a pretty nostalgic person. If you look into the distance and sing a sad song about the past, I'll probably cry. But... no, it just isn't sad, dude. We just don't find this sort of slap-stick comedy funny anymore (for the most part), which is fine.

And anyway, I am against the one-man-show. I don't think that a one-man, or a one-woman, is... showy enough? I feel them to be a spectacle. A pathetic one. It feels vaguely like watching your sister put on a play in the living room, with sock puppets and wearing your mother's old dress. Fun at home, but embarrassing on a public stage.


For more high-quality phone pictures of our roadtrip so far, go to Ellen's blog.