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 J:
Has your family seen the show and how did they take to it?
MS: Yes, they’ve seen the show, and yes, they like it. People are
shocked that my family likes it. It’s interesting how some people say,
‘Did your mother see this? Oh my god, she must be … you didn’t think she
would be offended by it?’ I don’t think it’s offensive to her at all.
She doesn’t get offended at all.
Actually they’re flattered. That’s where I think the show is borderline
maybe. I do make fun. At least the idea of stand-up comedy where you
have to not be that nice. … To some extent, that’s true that after an
event happens, maybe weeks later, to address it and make fun. The show
is very exaggerated -- the point of the show is that it’s all through my
eyes, so that from my perspective as a nine-year-old, my mother screamed
at me like a freak.
That’s not necessarily what a third party would have seen or what she
thought. She would never say that happened; she doesn’t remember it ever
happening at all. She doesn’t remember ever catching me, but I remember
being caught and feeling that way. Maybe whatever she did made me feel
like that. So when I wrote it and put it up, I wanted the audience to
feel like what I was feeling. It’s similar to my father, shouting out
about getting my period, in the restaurant. He doesn’t think that
happened, but from my perspective it really happened.
J: Who are your influences in performing?
MS: Lily Tomlin and Gilda Radner, definitely, also Steve Martin. And
Jonathan Katz, Margaret Cho and John Leguizamo. Also [playwrights] Amiri
Baraka and Caryl Churchill.
J: What were your best and worst performing experiences?
MS: The best performance experience was probably the Friday night show
at Cherry Lane -- it was amazing, the house was so good. That one and
the other show I did probably eight months before that. I don’t know
which one was better, but that Friday night show, the audience really
enjoyed it. That’s what I base it on, how much fun they have.
The worst was … an ironic one. I performed the show for a group of
children, age eight. I had to censor myself as I went through the show,
but because I didn’t know this was the age group, because I wasn’t told,
I was very uncomfortable. I arrived 45 minutes before I had to go on.
There was nothing I could do at that point. I couldn’t go through the
script and re-memorize. The only thing I could do was during the show,
try and cut things out. I did. It wasn’t only eight year olds, it was
from eight to about 20, but I thought the age group was going to be 16
to 20. I didn’t know anyone was going to be any younger, and there
weren’t any parents.
J: It might be the first time some of them heard about certain things.
MS: It was. I didn’t cut out everything. I edited a couple words here
and there when I thought it was going to get a little too specific.
Because it is vague I could live with myself, because the kids were
fine. They didn’t learn anything they shouldn’t, basically, and they
didn’t really get the stuff that could possibly make them aware of
things.
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