laughing through the pain: julia masli’s “ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” at the public
Julia Masli’s Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha uses ingenious ways to make people laugh at life’s endless predicaments (photo by Austin Ruffer)
“Problem?”
Estonian clown Julia Masli asks that question of numerous audience members in her magical “solo” show Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha, continuing at the Public’s Anspacher Theater through June 29.
A hit at the Edinburgh Fringe and now touring through Washington, DC’s outstanding Woolly Mammoth company — where Masli will star in a holiday edition entitled Ho Ho Ho Ha Ha Ha Ha beginning November 12 — Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha is a unique experience that combines humor and a kind of group therapy while investigating the state of the world as seen by those fortunate enough to have scored a ticket. Each performance is different, as Masli, wearing a bizarre costume (designed by Alice Wedge, Annika Thiems, and David Curtis-Ring) that makes her look like a futuristic robot miner, in a blue toga-like dress with a headlamp and a bell and one arm replaced with a bronze leg, reacts to people’s answers by proceeding with related improvised skits in which several of those audience members participate onstage, sometimes for extended periods of time, so be ready to join in, especially if you are sitting in the front row. Don’t worry; Masli doesn’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to, but it’s utterly amazing what they will do. All of it has a purpose, and no one will be embarrassed. Instead, we are all freed.
The London-based Masli (Choosh, Logs) is masterful at getting folks to open up about their problems; the night I went, a theme developed, one that is not usually associated with tremendous laughter: the relationship between parents and children, particularly elderly mothers and fathers suffering from dementia. While Masli asked us to pray for one man’s seriously ill father, she had another audience member call his healthy mother to share some important, but not bad, news. An older man detailed his father’s unfortunate decline.
I wondered how I would answer Masli’s question if she approached me; others had mentioned heartbreak, unhappiness with a job, and the planet falling apart. I have my issues with the current administration, and I recently was laid off from my position of twenty years, but I’m not sure either would be fodder for the show, although Masli can turn just about anything into an involving, and hilarious, story.
My wife had spent much of that day in Connecticut, visiting her mother in the hospital. It turned out to be nothing serious, but my mother-in-law is eighty-nine; my father-in-law is ninety, and both are as sharp as ever. Today we went up to Stamford for Father’s Day, not one of my favorite holidays, as my father suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in 1985 at the age of forty-seven, so this would be my fortieth Father’s Day without him. He died shortly after I graduated from the university he had dreamed of going to when he was a kid — the school that his immigrant parents couldn’t afford to send him to. I can’t call my mom on Mother’s Day, or any day, as she died in 2017 at the age of seventy-six after a short illness.
Julia Masli works with an audience member in Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha (photo by Austin Ruffer)
Masli’s show also made me think of a few people in my life who, I had just learned, are either no longer with us or will be gone soon. One of my parents’ best friends has decided to stop cancer treatment and go into hospice. A beloved aunt died after a long and difficult battle with Alzheimer’s. A wonderful theater colleague of ours is nearing the end, spending whatever time he has left in a facility in the Bronx; I felt deeply guilty for having lost touch with him over the past few months.
I don’t believe Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha is always about death, judging by the various unusual props and set-ups Masli has incorporated on other nights, collaborating with director Kim Noble, lighting designer Lily Woodford, sound designer Alessio Festuccia, and improvised sound score implementer Sebastian Hernandez. The show can go off in so many directions, and Masli is prepared for them all, transforming each presentation into an extremely clever, awe-inspiring comic riff on the human condition.
It’s much more than just a shared cathartic experience. It’s an ingenious production about facing your troubles head-on and celebrating who you are, about taking action, about building, rebuilding, and laughing your head off.
“Are you scared?” she asks one audience member, adding, “Of me, or for me?”
The holiday season, from Thanksgiving to Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s, is another tough time for anyone who has lost dear family members too soon. Perhaps this year I’ll head down to DC to check out Ho Ho Ho Ha Ha Ha Ha; Masli knows how to brighten even the darkest days with her singular talent to bring happiness wherever she goes.
[You can follow Mark Rifkin and This Week in New York every day here.]
I would go to DC!
I loved this show so much! I would go to DC for the next iteration!