The estimable Paul Scott Goodman, who gave us the semi-autobiographical musical Rooms: A Rock Romance two years ago, is in town with his much-more-autobiographical Son of a Stand Up Comedian. Careful, Paul! Real life is incomparably messier than the tight narrative arc you crafted for Rooms,
and – at least for me – frequently boring. ( It would go Got into the Metro Station/I was plenty nervous/Then I saw with indignation/”This train is out of service.”)
Nonetheless: here is the Glasgow-born Goodman, on a nearly-bare stage (an excellent percussionist, Greg Holloway, is hidden in a forest of drums and percussive instruments; and there is a table which holds a carafe of iced tea), guitar strapped around his neck and looking for all the world like a folk-singing hero. He gives us a smile, rueful and mischievous both, bangs out a few chords on his ax, and begins a life in song.
He starts with the New York day that he met the woman who would eventually be his wife. She had just appeared in an Arthur Miller showcase called “A View From The Bridge With All My Sons The Price of The Crucible” and he was writing a musical based on Death of a Salesman called Willie!, or, alternately, Willie Exclamation Point. (Sample lyric: “Biff if/ You stole the pen/ Please don’t do it again.”) He falls in love with her immediately (thus enabling the show to clock in at seventy-five minutes) and the production – narrative alternating with song – follows them from first awkward conversation through the birth of their first child, whom they nickname “Tiny Dancer” because of her in utero reaction to the music of Sir Elton John. He continues to follow the dream of staging his improbable musical through failed careers as a caterer and as a jingle writer. (Sample jingle, for a kosher cat food: “Kitty Lox, Kitty Lox/ Keep your feline orthodox.”) He seeks consolation from his father, himself an amateur comedian (Rooms aficionados will be reminded of Monica Miller’s progenitor); dad advises him to return to Glasgow and help him in the shop. He looks to his mother-in-law for support. “You’re going to be a good father,” she assures him. “Just become a computer operator.” He has crazy adventures. He perseveres.
Goodman relates all of this fairly predictable stuff in periodically clever but generally familiar-sounding lyrics (“See that building/I shall bound it/Spread my wings/And fly around it” is fairly typical) set to simple, pleasing, but unmemorable music. He is an excellent musician – as befits someone who has performed with John Mellencamp and Joan Armatrading – but as for his vocals, well, he’s no Natascia Diaz. He hits about sixty percent of his notes – which, for a songwriter, is an acceptable ratio, as followers of the great John Prine know. Even with his burr, Goodman is easier to listen to and easier to understand than Bob Dylan is.
What makes Son of a Stand Up Comedian more than an evening of well-worn jokes and familiar (if somewhat absurd) stories is an incident which takes place about two-thirds of the way through the show. Goodman is still somewhat stoned from a drinkfest he shared with a Drama Guild poobah when he runs into his wife’s grandparents, aunt and uncles on the N train to visit his mother-in-law. This is a little more than coincidence, since they are all dead, killed at Treblinka. Nonetheless, they toast him, and congratulate him on his imminent fatherhood. He staggers out of the train, only to find himself dragged into a synagogue as the tenth Jewish adult necessary to permit prayer to begin. As he prays, his daughter is about to be born.
Goodman relates these astonishing events in the same gentle, rueful, homey style that he tells his other stories, both mundane and absurd. But it is inescapable: life has ceased to be a stand up comedy. All that is left of those murdered men and women is their DNA, which flows through Goodman’s wife into the Tiny Dancer, who will live the life denied to them. This is as real and earnest as it gets, and Goodman has the grace to allow it to touch him, and through him, to touch us.
And then it’s back to the nonsense, concluding with a cheerful ditty called The Ham Song, which summarizes Goodman’s most prominent personality characteristics. But the change has been noted: Goodman is not just the son of a stand up comedian any more, but is a father, and an agent of posterity.
Since Goodman skates so close to true autobiography, it is probably worthwhile to point out the differences. Neither Goodman nor anyone else has produced a musical version of Death of a Salesman, but Goodman did write a musical version of an equally unlikely text – Jay McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City. It was not well received initially, but the cast album was successfully released, and it sparked a new appreciation for Goodman’s work. I do not know if he ever worked as a caterer or jingle writer but I’ll bet he doesn’t now. Rooms has played in New York and is now opening in Philadelphia and Tampa. Goodman has won the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame Best New Songwriter Award, a Jonathan Larsen Foundation Award, and a Backstage Bistro Award. And the Tiny Dancer? She graduates from Sarah Lawrence this year.
Son of a Stand Up Comedian
Book by Paul Scott Goodman and Miriam Gordon
Music and Lyrics by Paul Scott Goodman
Directed by Michael Baron
Produced by MetroStage
Reviewed by Tim Treanor
Son of a Stand Up Comedian plays through May 9, 2010.
Reviews
SON OF A STAND UP COMEDIAN
- Nelson Pressley . Washington Post
- Lisa Traiger . Washington Jewish Week
(no byline) . DCExaminer
Susan Berlin . Talkin’Broadway
Doug Rule . MetroWeekly - Barbara MacKay . DCExaminer
Its really cool that Paul was able to personalize his mother in laws miraculous 4 year survival in the death camps into his work (when stats show that survival in Auschwitz was nearly impossible beyond 2 weeks once those viscous animals cattle carted you through the front gate), and find a graceful way to remember all her relatives who didn’t make it.
You have covered many engaging points here. I came across it by searching Google and I’ve got to admit that I am now subscribed to your blog, it is extremely good (;
I really enjoyed this show. Paul has a wonderful flair for interesting wordplay (he had me at “artsy fartsy, hoity toity, matron patron”) and intelligent humor. He also tells his story (which is obviously embellished, like most good stories) in a smooth and touching fashion. True, the songs aren’t as memorable as those in “Rooms” but they have an intimacy that serves the show admirably. The themes of growing up, handling relationships, dealing with your dreams and those of a parent, are universal ones. Anyone would enjoy this charming show.
To clarify, Son of a Stand Up Comedian is semi–autobiographical at best. Most of the events have been fictionalized. The circumstances are similar to his life but this is not Paul Scott Goodman’s life story (or mine for that matter). There is, hopefully, a message that is being conveyed of struggle and survival. The comedy routines are intended to have an old Catskill or Vaudevillian feel in order to capture the world which shaped the character. There is never an actual or real name used for any of the characters including the one which Paul portrays. I was also, therefore, taken aback by the disclosure of our daughter’s name as the real “Tiny Dancer” and where she attends school, especially since this is a review and not an article about Paul or me. This is not a personal tale, although it is meant to have a personal feel for dramatic purpose, audience experience, and poignancy. The story is based on “truths,” but there is artistic license taken, as most authors will do, in order to convey a message.
Thank you,
Miriam Gordon