INTERVIEW: Iris Bahr explores mortality at Cherry Lane Theatre

Iris Bahr’s I Lost You There: A humorous exploration of a most unfunny subject returns to the Cherry Lane Theatre in Manhattan for a special October engagement. The one-woman show has Bahr playing several characters, all of them focused on the issues of loss, love and mortality.

The show has its fair share of touching, dramatic moments, but there’s comedy laced throughout the piece as well. In other words, I Lost You There mimics real life, depicting the highs and lows during difficult times.

Bahr is a Lucille Lortel Award winner best known for Curb Your Enthusiasm, Svetlana and DAI (enough), another one of her one-woman shows. She’s also a travel memoirist and is currently working on a book with comedian JB Smoove.

Recently, Hollywood Soapbox spoke with Bahr about the show, which plays until Oct. 14 at the Cherry Lane. Here’s what she had to say:

On what I Lost You There is about …

“Well, it’s a tragic-comic journey about love and loss. There’s a dark humor. My work usually is funny and moving from minute to minute. So one minute you’re laughing; the next minute you’re crying. It’s a look at existence and mortality in a fresh way.”

On the development of the show …

“My previous show was about a suicide bombing in the Middle East, so mortality has always been on my mind. But about two years ago my mom was suddenly hospitalized in the ICU for about a month, and we didn’t know if she was going to make it. She did, thank God, but throughout that process, I started thinking about loss and how different cultures take care of aging parents.

“One of my friends left her husband for a year to live with her dad to take care of him when he was dying of cancer and how other cultures put their parents in old age homes, so all this stuff kind of kept circling around in my mind. And that was kind of the initial seed, and then I tried to flesh it out through specific stories and cultures. Each character is from a very different background and culture.”

On whether the characters are based on real people …

“They’re purely fictional. I always try and find an emotional truth that I can connect to, and obviously I’m inspired by people. But the actual stories are completely fiction.”

On the feedback she has received after performing I Lost You There …

“I had a lot of amazing feedback. One woman, a nurse in an ER, told me that she had a rough week, that she had lost a few people that week, and coming to the show was somehow cathartic and also soothing in an odd way. Another woman told me that I channeled her mother’s hospice worker. One of the characters is a hospice worker from the Philippines. … They find it cathartic as I hope good theater is. That’s why we go see this stuff.”

On the demands of the play …

“It’s emotionally demanding. I wouldn’t say it’s physically. I guess if you combine physical and emotional, but the show is a very still show in a lot of ways. My previous show was physically demanding and emotionally. This one sucks a lot of emotion out of me, so by the end of it, I, too, am tired but also kind cleansed.”

On her own discovery of these themes …

“I have to keep it fresh. Any time you do something numerous times — and it’s a one-woman show, and it’s all kind of self-generated, you’re not bouncing off of anybody — you have to find ways to keep it fresh. Every day, every performance I try to inhabit these characters as if it’s the first time they’re sharing their stories obviously. I do discover different nuances.

“There’s a lot of humor in the show. So far, it sounds like it’s really dark, but people laugh throughout the show, like big laughs, not just dry chuckles. There’s a lot of laughter and humor in the show, and the characters are fun. They’re really fun characters. There’s a lot of fun and outrageousness, too. There’s outrageous scenarios that we discuss. I think that I find those moments also with the audience. The audience is the other character in the show, so I bounce off them as well.”

On choosing this title …

“The title went through several iterations. It used to be called Death 2.0 because I was exploring death through different perspectives, and then I felt like it didn’t do it justice and didn’t leave enough mystery. It was a little on the nose, and so I wanted the notion of I Lost You There. What does that mean? I lost you there? What, are you talking to somebody on the phone and you lose them?”

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

I Lost You There will play until Oct. 14 at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.