THE NEW YORK SUN: The Wrong Kind of Show About Abortion

Two days after the leak of the Supreme Court draft majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, I saw a one-woman show about abortion. 

As a fan of Alison Leiby’s “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and Ilana Glazer’s “Broad City,” I was genuinely excited, thinking the show might be historic, or original, or poignant, or just “deeply funny,” as the New York Times claimed it was. Even its title is sweetly self-deprecating: “Oh God, A Show About Abortion.” 

Doja Cat music blared as Ms. Leiby took the stage at the Cherry Lane Theatre, welcoming us to her special show. “My mom texted me, ‘Kill it tonight,’” she said, “and I’m like, ‘Uh, I already did. That’s why we’re here.’” 

Oh, God, I thought. This kind of show about abortion. 

Actually, a stand-up set should be the perfect place to discuss something so weighty and timely. Since the dawn of stand-up, comedians have used their humor to touch third-rail issues and point out truths. Take “oral jazzman” Lenny Bruce, a pioneer of 1960s counterculture, or George Carlin, who was arrested for performing “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” or, more recently, Dave Chappelle and Sarah Silverman’s takes on race, gender and religion. 

For this template to work, though, there are two requirements: You must be funny, and you must be truthful. 

Although Ms. Leiby’s jokes about New York life induce the occasional belly-laugh, she’s mostly millennial funny: “hmmm” funny, not “haha” funny. The sort of Hannah Gadsby funny that elicits a feeling of belonging, a nod of agreement, a smirk, and a clap or two — which is to say, the kind of funny that’s not very funny at all.  

As for the second prerequisite? Ms. Leiby’s show is truthful, but the truths she exposes are not the ones she intends. 

Miss Leiby’s journey begins three summers ago in Missouri, or Misery, as she calls it. As she walks down a red-state fertility aisle, she expects to see crucifixes and wooden signs that read, “Bless This Mess.” Instead, she finds a pregnancy test (not in the Satanic Worship section). As she urinates into a crystal rocks glass at her hotel, she wonders, “Who am I if not a mother? How can I protect the life I’ve built for myself?” She pictures herself posting that first hospital picture on Instagram, with a tiny baby wrapped in pink and blue, which she says is “when life really begins.”

Herein lies truth no. 1: If these are our considerations in a time of crisis, we are an irreparably selfish generation. We’re asking all the wrong questions. 

A second truth surfaces later, and more quietly. When she calls Planned Parenthood to request an abortion, she whispers the word under her breath to the healthcare provider on the other end of the line. “It’s because the word abortion has been so loaded with heavy social and political weight,” Ms. Leiby says, “that it’s hard to say neutrally.”

The show is rife with causal references to pregnancy — nothing but an “annoyance,” a “cockroach trapped under a glass,” a “whoopsababy,” or a dead cactus from an overpriced Brooklyn plant store — and to abortion, which is said to be akin to food poisoning, as underwhelming as a Nordstrom Rack, and just a “Saturday afternoon D&C.” 

However, it’s in that moment, when she whispers over the phone, that she says the quiet part out loud. 

Any attempts to de-stigmatize or decouple abortion from its gravity will ultimately come up short — there’s something in even the most vocal abortion activist that knows this to be true. Finding lightness in the midst of heaviness may be a universal coping mechanism, but it fails as stand-up comedy. 

Published on May 9th, 2022.

Image: Mindy Tucker