INTERVIEW: Zoë Geltman’s ‘Puffy Hair’ opens in NYC
Photo: Puffy Hair was written by and stars Zoë Geltman. Photo courtesy of Sammu Tunis / Provided by Everyman Agency with permission.
Zoë Geltman, an accomplished performer and writer, has brought her new show, Puffy Hair, to The Tank in New York City. The monologue piece tracks one woman’s “ambivalent and tortured” relationship with the male gaze, according to press notes. Topics throughout the evening include everything from self-hatred to body dysmorphia to the “existential pressure of a bun.” Performances of Puffy Hair run through Nov. 20 at the off-Broadway theater.
Geltman should be well known to theater fans in the Big Apple. Her work has been seen at Bushwick Starr, New Georges, The Brick and Dixon Place, among many other theaters. She appeared in Clubbed Thumb’s The World My Mama Raised and the Playwrights’ Center’s Kara and Emma and Barbara and Miranda.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Geltman about Puffy Hair, which is directed by Julia Sirna-Frest. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How long has this piece been in development, and what inspired its creation?
I wrote the long monologue at the end of the show first, about five years ago. It just kind of all came out of me, in one piece. I gave that monologue to a character in a play I wrote called This Dump is a Dump, which is about a personal assistant to an awful, demanding, self-absorbed woman who just wants to be your friend. That monologue was the personal assistant character finally letting it all out, screaming that she wasn’t going to take it anymore. And it was set in a stand-up club.
I guess stand-up to me feels so brutal and also pure, like it’s just you and the stage, and there’s no one else to rely on — to fall back on, but also to hold you back. So it feels like this perfect place to really let it all hang out. But then, when I started doing stand-up a bit, and going to open mics, as a way to feel what that was like when I was writing that play, it all felt sort of anti-climactic and sad to me. Like where’s the theatricality? Where’s the drama? Where’s even the audience? So I think this play comes out of both of those urges in me — and me trying to weave them together.
But to actually answer the question, we did this play in a few different iterations: with two other people, the uber-talented Ugo Chukwu and Maggie Robinson Katz, who were my “backup singers,” so to speak; in a 20-minute version; in a slightly longer version. And we did it at a bunch of different places, including The Tank, The PIT, Uncanny Valley and The Wild Project for the SFX Festival. Those were all one-night-only performances, so this is our first time doing this expanded version (it’s a little under an hour), and with just me, and for a longer run.
Would you classify this show as a play or stand-up?
Maybe stand-up in the framework of a play. Or a play stuffed inside stand-up.
Although there is comedy in the show, many of the issues you touch upon are quite serious. How do you strike a balance between comedy and seriousness?
Humor is how I relate to the world. I think it’s partly a self-defense mechanism — if I can make a joke of something, if I can make fun of myself, then I don’t have to actually deal with it, or feel the hard thing — but it’s also my preferred way of telling a story and, almost, I would venture to say, of consuming a story. I aim to entertain, above all — at the same time that I hopefully make you think, or wince in recognition. Maybe it’s that I want to make you laugh while you’re swallowing a mouthful of blood.
Are the thoughts and stories throughout the evening autobiographical or pulled from the insights of others?
Both! I wouldn’t say it’s an “autobiographical” play, and that’s why Julia and I have steered away from using the term “solo show” to describe the piece. Solo show has connotations of memoir, which this show definitely is not. But there is a bit of a coyness in there, where I’m saying to the audience, “I bet you want to know if this is real or not, but I’m not going to tell you.” I suppose it’s similar to stand-up in that way, where there’s often an assumption that what the comedian is saying is true, and is about themselves, but it’s often something that started as a seed from their own life, but then has been so crafted and re-worked that at the time of performance, it’s this completely other thing.
There’s a moment in Maria Bamford’s special, “Weakness is the Brand,” in which she starts telling a joke and then gets tripped up about when it happened and goes, “recently…uh…a little while ago…yesterday? Is that good for comedy? Is ‘yesterday’ good for comedy?!” I love that moment because Maria is so vulnerable and so honest, but at the same time, it’s like, THIS IS A SHOW AND I’M A PERFORMER, AND I’M TRYING TO ENTERTAIN YOU!
What’s it like working with director Julia Sirna-Frest?
Well, it’s just the best. Julia and I are very good friends, and so there’s an ease and also a shared language and shorthand we have, where we don’t have to explain everything; we just kind of know what we’re talking about. Julia is also so attuned to tiny details and to finessing each one of them, which is so good for me because I just kind of like to bulldoze through large portions of text and just get it out. But she really sculpts moments. Really, every time I do it, I’m just trying to get Julia to laugh. And even better — to get her to laugh at moments she hasn’t laughed at before! So that’s really my whole goal with this show.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Puffy Hair plays through Nov. 20 at The Tank in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
