The Judy Show: My Life as a Sitcom (Aug, 2013)
Judy Gold, all 6-feet-three inches of her first came into my view on the HBO channel when she was interviewing audiences coming out of first-run movies. Audiences of all ages. She was funny. You could tell she was “in control” and the very inflection in her voice when she asked questions was funny. I could listen to the same interviews over and over again and know I would be laughing just as I did when I first tuned in because of her manner.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when I realized the comedienne was the very same Judy starring at the Geffen Theatre in “the Judy Show,” My LIfe as a Sitcom.” Judy wrote the 75 minute show herself with Kate Moira Ryan, and noted when she first came on stage that could run shorter if she was wired on coffee. Actually it ran a bit longer, typical of her nature it seems.
The show is about her life as a Jewish, lesbian, stand-up comic and mom. And how she came to hold that title, and why, as a lover of all things sit-com, she should have her life showcased on a TV sit-com.
This was in all the notes so it should not have been a surprise, but, of course, I came to see that HBO interviewer. It was not a surprise to the rest of the audience which included many same sex couples. (I lesbian friend of mine later said that there were few theatre productions that did justice to the theme). Judging from the uproarious reaction from the entire audience, the themes resonated with one faction of the audience or the other continuously. I enjoyed the merry laughter of the woman behind me as much as the show in front of me.
It was not the HBO interviewer on stage, though. I realized this soon enough, and it took more than the fingers on two hands, that the Judy I saw was in her late 30’s and this one was almost 50 with two children, and a mother in a retirement home. Still, this version of Judy is nevertheless a winsome, personable, talented lady who besides being funny, wrote the lyrics to the show and plays the piano in it…. and has a lot more heart than interviewer Judy.
Judy’s words sum it up best: “there’s something so magical about a theatre- the stage, the curtain, and these people waiting to be entertained (not like a night club with demanding customers and lots of off-stage noise). I think that stand-up is really who I am and how I make my living and how I cope with everything in my life but being able to tell a story and to have those moments that not funny –that are instead completely, brutally honest and emotional – those are the things that make doing a one-person show so vastly different and so rewarding.”
Key to Judy’s story is her love of sit-coms, and how she preferred even the raucous inter-action of “All in the Family” to her own family, which had two modes of communication: screaming and not talking. (It was amusing to hear the wonderful Florence Henderson recite the pre-stage directions overhead of not taking photos and not unwrapping candy during the show. And Florence Henderson was in the front row center of the audience opening night).
Judy acts out for us the pitch meetings in which she put forth the idea of a sit-com featuring lesbian moms and how the producers first didn’t want two women; then a decade later wanted an erotic show and in all three meetings wanted it animated — which she at last relents to do and shows us a version.
In the least, the evening is entertaining and Judy is likable enough. At best, it was thought-provoking and left me admiring her courage to stand tall (even after her mother asked her doctor when she was a teen-ager and already at full height when would Judy ever stop growing), to go after what she wanted and hone her musical and on-stage talent to gain her place in the spotlight, and at home as a mom (she birthed a child), and at the retirement home as a loving daughter.
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