A Series of Unfortunate Thoughts
April 27, 2007
What makes something funny? On the surface, this seems like a bit of a trivial question, but upon looking deeper, it seems to reveal a lot about who we are and what appeals to us. Other than crotch shots, which seem to be pretty universally hilarious, certain ideas are funny to some, and downright distasteful to others. This brings me to the idea of dark comedies, satires, and the like. Although it may seem a bit random, I have been thinking a lot about these lately in light of American black comedy novelist Kurt Vonnegut’s death (so it goes) and the Hillel play performed last Thursday, Have You Spoken to Any Jews Lately? (To which I think many of us can honestly say, “yes”).
While I like to think that Kurt Vonnegut, his ideas, and his work are well known to many readers, it is still probably a good idea to give a short biography, if for no other reason than that Vonnegut’s life is a perfect example of “dark comedy.” As a child during the Great Depression, Vonnegut grew up loving to make people laugh. After high school he attended Cornell University to receive training as a chemist, but his education was interrupted by World War II. Serving in Germany, he was captured in the Battle of the Bulge, where he bore witness to the incomprehensible tragedy of the bombing of Dresden. His mother committed suicide on Mother’s Day the same year. Returning home, he took up a series of teaching jobs, eventually writing short fiction for magazines. His first novel Player Piano, was published in 1952, although it was not until 1957’s Slaughterhouse-Five that he became a commonly recognized author. Since then he wrote six more novels, including Breakfast of Champions and Galapagos. Most recently he wrote A Man Without a Country in 2005, which was a sort of memoir/autobiography. He passed away April 11, 2007 at the age of 84.
I was fortunate enough to have done my senior thesis on Vonnegut’s work, and I know that many Tufts students are familiar with him. I still remember reading Slaughterhouse-Five, and reading it again, then again, each time laughing, either out loud or silently, at its beauty. Yet his work was also fairly depressing. Vonnegut frequently thought and wrote about suicide, and even attempted it in 1984. The scars of war never completely healed for him, and he remained pessimistic about the fate of the U.S. and mankind. It was this combination of sadness and humor that made his books so appealing, or at least that is one of the main reasons why I liked them. But what is the connection between the two? Are they merely different forms of one another? It is on this rather flimsy transition that I will discuss Have You Spoken to Any Jews Lately?
The play, by Bruce J. Friedman, covers two Jewish men, a writer and his close friend, both of whom have been involved with Hollywood and celebrities. One of them now lives out in the country, where he has married a non-Jewish woman and has a “religiously ambiguous” child. These two characters gradually start to discover that neither one of them has spoken to any other Jews lately. Many strange occurrences begin to take place involving the disappearances of their Jewish friends, and the two of them begin to feel threatened. What I remember most vividly though, is a train ride that they take in order to look into a property concern. Their settings and surroundings slowly begin to resemble those during the Holocaust, as their panic builds. Finally, after many excruciating gags, it turns out that there is no massive plot against the Jews and they are fine.
My biggest question upon watching the play was: is this sort of thing funny, or inappropriate? With regard to the actual production itself, all of the actors’ performances were very strong and had very good comedic timing. It was especially funny to read on the program that the director employed a Jewish culture consultant for help with some Yiddish. Indeed, the culturally ambidextrous director Lauren Go even played an Irish character married to a Jewish man, despite being Asian. Excellent production aside, is this sort of thing really funny? In the case of Have You Spoken to Any Jews Lately?, it was at times. As things began to resemble deportation more and more, some people laughed freely, others gasped. I think that many audience responses fell into the mid-range, where one laughs sporadically, but not without a look of shock on his or her face. But, at the very least, it got a reaction. If the play had been either a straight-up comedy, or a full blown tragedy, it may have sat better but made people think less.
On the whole, the aim of the dark comedy is to make people uncomfortable, and make them think. After reading Vonnegut’s first ever published short story, “Report on the Barnhouse Effect,” I remember loving it, but being slightly frightened of its implications. The story deals with the proliferation of weapons after the war, and can be found in the collection Welcome to the Monkey House, along with much of Vonnegut’s other earlier work. Have You Spoken to Any Jews Lately? had a similar effect. I laughed a bit and admired its cleverness, but winced a lot too. It is on this flimsy transition that I will end this article. I sincerely hope that Mr. Vonnegut is now in the company of some of his closest friends, Kilgore Trout, Elliot Rosewater, Billy Pilgrim, and those illustrious Hoenikkers. He will be lovingly missed. So it goes.