Leave it to our great comics to shed light on today’s greatest concerns: “Female reproductive organs are not as complicated as we make them out to be.”
That’s philosophy from Friday’s performance of Misery Loves Company, Friday at Blackfriars Theater. This show is the work of comic actors Joe Liss, who has played the Rochester Fringe Festival in the past, and is a familiar face from shows such as Curb Your Enthusiasm. And Dee Ryan, known for her work in shows such as The Office.
Misery Loves Company returns Saturday afternoon, and the improv aspect of the show means it’s likely to run off in some different directions than the audiences have heard the last two days.
The sometimes sly, sometimes bold references throughout Misery Loves Company range from Dr. Oz to Stephen King; the latter, as in an infamous line from the film Misery, “I’m your No. 1 fan.” The jokes are meant to push buttons with abandon, including references to “an AI uterus” and “a five-star vagina.” And drinking urine. And, “You have some sort of menstrual behavior right now. It is correctly pointed out that the old children’s game Operation, in which you used tweezers to operate on a game-board patient, is based on a man’s organs.
In the clearest reference to its source material, Misery, Ryan is tied to a bed, a block of wood positioned between her feet, as Liss wields a hammer. “I saw misery every day,” Ryan says, “because I am a woman in America.”
Jeff Spevak, a former sportswriter, a former arts writer, a former radio commentator, can be reached at jeffspevakwriter@gmail.com.