You can read the point of this entire show in this captivating clown’s face. It is a look of openness and wonder, vulnerability and curiosity, sincerity and expectation, a wide-eyed visage she keeps lit by a bright light on her wrist. Like an ethereal elfin alien, she enters slowly through an ambient purple haze wearing an incongruous blue draped costume with a headdress of tangled cable and a gold mannequin leg in place of her left arm. And she looks steadily at us as if seeking something in us we did not know was there.
The Estonian clown Julia Masli has come to DC in her silly-titled solo show ha ha ha ha ha ha ha — a one-of-a-kind comedy experience that has racked up five-star raves from sold-out runs in Edinburgh Fringe, New York, and elsewhere. She approaches individuals and asks guilelessly, “Probem?” Whatever they offer becomes the premise of an improvised solution. Every show is different depending on audience participation and response. The show I saw is not the one you’ll see, but you can expect to be surprised out of your wits by Masli’s imaginative and imprompu incorporation of disparate preset props and set pieces and her sixth sense for comic timing.
A moist twinkle in her eyes never leaves; it seems as much from rarely blinking as from truly wanting to meet us and bond with us and help us let go of our problems.
Over the course of a fleeting 60 minutes, Masli’s mischievous clowning morphs into a kind of shamanism: The show becomes not so much about her tour-de-force solo performance as about the experience of having shared time, space, and unguardedness in what is essentially, and existentially, a collaborative trust exercise.
Masli co-directs with Kim Noble, and the incongruity of Masli’s costume can be attributed to its having three designers: Alice Wedge, David Curtis-Ring, and Annika Thiems. There is also technical legerdemain throughout: Light Board Operator Daniel Interiano nimbly responds Lily Woodford’s lighting design to unscripted shifts in the show as does Sound Board Operator Sebastian Hernandez on the fly with Alessio Festuccia’s sound design.
By the end, after her ovation, Masli the clown exits selflessly — leaving on stage like a powerful metaphor the assorted audience members who also starred in the show.
What we retain of an experience in live theater may be a memory of characters, a story, melodies, stage pictures, and such. But central to any lasting recall will not be anything in particular seen or heard on stage but rather the feeling we felt inside while there in person. And that is the genius of ha ha ha ha ha ha ha: it invites us into a precious feeling of shared openness and empathy, and a baseline trust in the presence of others whom we may not know — the very human sensorial option now being foreclosed with such furor on our national stage.
In Laughs We Trust is both the maxim and the method that this hilarous and deeply affecting show embodies. Catch it at Woolly Mammoth by August 4, after which Masli is off to a booking at Lincoln Center.
Running Time: Approximately 60 minutes with no intermission.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha plays through August 4, 2024, at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 641 D St NW, Washington, DC. Tickets ($60–$80, with discounts available) can be purchased online, by phone at 202-393-3939 (Wednesday–Sunday, 12:00–6:00 p.m.), by email (tickets@woollymammoth.net), or in person at the Sales Office at 641 D Street NW, Washington, DC (Wednesday–Sunday, 12:00–6:00 p.m.).
The digital program is here.
COVID Safety: Masks are required for the performance on Tuesday, July 23, at 8pm. Masks are optional for all other performances. Woolly’s full safety policy is available here.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
By Julia Masli
Co-Directed by Julia Masli and Kim Noble
Costume Designer: Alice Wedge
Costume Designer: David Curtis-Ring
Costume Designer: Annika Thiems
Sound Designer: Alessio Festuccia
Lighting Designer: Lily Woodford
Sound Board Operator: Sebastian Hernandez
Light Board Operator: Daniel Interiano
Production Assistant: Alison Rogers
Tour Producer:Lianne Coop
SEE ALSO:
An Estonian clown walks into Woolly Mammoth and … ‘ha ha ha ha ha ha ha’ (interview by Ravelle Brickman, July 4, 2024)
