By Jessica Taurins.
Standup comedians are interesting folk, usually. Too distracted for acting, too gleeful for drama, too inherently depressed to do anything but measure their own worth against the sounds of the laughter in the room…
They’re freaks, some would say. Strange, grungy little freaks wandering a stage, alone, telling strangers their most intimate thoughts. But honest freaks, right? Surely when a comic recounts their life story it’s… truthful, is it not?
Feeling Afraid as If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen is the story of one such freak, a comedian known simply as… The Comedian, as though telling us his name will rob him of some secret he’s trying to hide. The Comedian (Samuel Barnett) is adorable in a sort of neurotic way, flitting around the stage with all the energy of a golden retriever looking for a snack. He drags his microphone cable back and forth while telling us about his hookups, his family, and his new boyfriend he intends to kill.
Wait, what?
Feeling Afraid… is presented as a standup show, with all the hallmarks of one-person comedy. But, instead, the audience are asked to consider what’s real, what’s not real, and what still might yet come to pass. Penned by playwright Marcelo Dos Santos, Feeling Afraid… takes our hand and drags us through the deepest recesses of a person’s brain as The Comedian comes to terms with deep, genuine love, alongside a desperate need for attention.
As The Comedian, Barnett performs an utterly fantastic show. A monologue is difficult at the best of times but Feeling Afraid… leaves him absolutely nowhere to hide. The only set dressing is a microphone, a chair, and ominous lighting rods hidden behind the curtains, so Barnett is a bit like a lamb left in a lion’s enclosure, waiting for us to lift him out.
Instead, we’re forced to let him perish in the throes of his own tale.
The Comedian’s story is dark, almost upsettingly so. There are moments of typical anxiety – am I funny enough, am I sexy enough, how can I make the object of my affections love me even though they only want my dick pics – interspersed with moments of proper darkness – graphic descriptions of violent thoughts and intentions to harm – interspersed with silly, giggly moments of stand up.
All throughout, Barnett plays every character, transitioning flawlessly between himself, his mother, his fellow comedians, and most impressively, his Adonis of a boyfriend: The American. Barnett relays conversations between the two main characters with all the smoothness of a polished chrome orb – that is to say, incredibly smoothly. The Comedian is small, hunched, nervous, even when we’re hearing his very deepest thoughts, whereas The American has a tall posture and outstretched chest, the very image of a war hero wearing the tight red, white, and blue pants of freedom.
Or not wearing them, as The Comedian would prefer.
I won’t spoil the story here, but the outcome is not as tragic as one would think. In fact, I was almost disappointed coming away from the story without it being quite as gruesome as I’d expected. Dos Santos has built incredibly ugly moments into the show, like when The Comedian describes – in astonishing, horrendous, gut-wrenching detail – an evening he spends being sexually assaulted by a stranger. But these are balanced well against moments where we think that, perhaps, The Comedian may just be okay someday, and everything will turn out all right.
The lighting design by Elliot Griggs helps us see through The Comedian’s outer layers into his soft, squishy core. When speaking into a microphone, The Comedian is pretending, preening for the crowd, or his friends, or his mum, but not really present in any real way. When his hands pull the microphone from his face, or he finally drops it to the ground, The Comedian is at his most real. It’s where The Comedian is looking at us, not through us, finally pouring the actual contents of his heart upon the floor, and Barnett’s earnest, pained, cries fill the audience up with his desperate sadness.
Feeling Afraid… is heavy, with a long list of content warnings presented upfront. There are certainly some segments that were hard to hear regardless of the fact or fiction of it all. However, the story wouldn’t work without its darkness. The Comedian, a man titled for his role in bringing joy to others, is deeply pained and desperate for an honest connection, as are we all. And sometimes, unfortunately, bad things will happen to good people, and bad thoughts will pass through their minds as well.
For a show based heavily around gay male hookup culture, Feeling Afraid… is relatable to any audience. The Comedian and I have shared similar thoughts – not so much the murdery ones, to be clear, but our anxieties and fears align on some levels – and it’s certain that other viewers will get something different out of the performance.
Images:Mark Gambino