Summer 2019, Wilbo Spent Thirty Days in a Hole Telling Jokes at Comedy Works, Saratoga Springs

Monday, April 6th, 2020 at 11:00 AM

Hopalong Cassidy Trail

Streator, Illinois

Last few nights, I've stayed up later to watch videos on Stand Up Comedy to learn technique. I began with Heckler, a documentary by Jaime Kennedy. He explores why people heckle comedians in comedy clubs and really goes to the root of the behavior. 

A long list of stars weigh in, including Carrie Fisher and Bill Maher and even George Lucas of Star Wars fame. "Everybody's A Critic", he concluded. A long list of critics paraded on the screen. A few who had dissed movies by Uwe Boll. 

So Jaime Kennedy arranged for each critic to get in the boxing ring with Bolt. On camera, Boll slugged each critic in the tummy and made the critics barf. One critic kneeled on the ground and lost his lunch as slugger Uwe Boll watched. I loved it because I've been a critic before and made artists want to slug me in the tummy too.

The next night, I watched the 2002 film Comedian, a Miramax feature that shows Jerry Seinfeld learning to perform stand-up comedy again after leaving his own, highly successful television series. Seinfeld messes up his early sets at Caroline's and all the downstairs, late night comedy clubs he visits, practically begging for stage time. A true artist must part with a cause when it triumphs. Seinfeld had set aside all his material before the last episode of the show.

I identified deeply with Seinfeld because I walked down many staircases to comedy clubs deep underground. I experienced evenings where I made the house laugh, every single person. I knew nights when I went on later because I was afraid of bombing and I didn't want the house to leave. I often wrote a ten minute show and used it once or twice. Then I scrapped it. I filmed each set and winced each time I watched.  I have no idea when my new hobby of telling jokes in front of drinking strangers will pay off.

In late November 2019, before leaving Round Lake, New York for the winter, Black and Brown Theater Company in Detroit put out a call for short plays for a Christmas program at Marygrove College. I had an idea of writing a play to honor my brother Matthew, who died of heart failure almost two years prior. Thanksgiving Dinner had been the last time I saw Matt and his partner Jim, the last time I spoke face to face to my elder brother.

Mother had made for all of her children a Christmas ornament for each Christmas we had together. One Christmas, she made sled ornaments. Another Christmas, she made dancing elves. In a single night, I pecked out a play called "The Matthew Tree" on my cellphone. I made loving use of my mother's custom. In fact, Liam had to recreate eighteen years of custom Christmas ornaments. I transferred the work to my screen writing program and sent it to Black and Brown Theater Company.

It came together magically, a gift from the season and maybe a higher power. Black and Brown Theater Company passed on the script. It was too long. The evening called for skits. Emilio Rodriguez the director wrote me a heartfelt apology. All Saints Episcopal Church staged The Matthew Tree as a readers theater, however. Nothing affirms a playwright more than a performance.

How did that play come to fruit as quickly as it had? Surely, thirty days in a hole telling jokes down under Saratoga Springs had helped loosen up my self-expression. I have felt grateful to the staff of Comedy Works many times as I work on the tragedy and comedy of this writer's life.