When bad things like a pandemic cause me to despair, I try to find a logical explanation, remember that heroes appear in unusual situations, and know there is a deeper spiritual meaning to be scraped out of the despair. Thank the cosmos that Rachel Bloom calls bullshit on all of it in Death, Let Me Do My Show. This is 90 minutes of Bloom saying and singing the truth in a delightfully raunchy kick-in-the-ass surreal musical show. Seth Barrish directs with a crisp economy of staging that does not upstage the performance.
Life isn't just messy, it's rife with trees that smell like a crusty jockstrap. Bloom uses a more vivid term that is succinct and sung like a tune played in the parlor of the Gilded Age while twirling a lacy parasol. Nothing is off-limits from being skewered, especially death and what is beyond that last breath. Bloom has a great singing voice. It is clear and disarmingly sweet. She reminds me of the studio system entertainers who could sing, dance, and act. Bloom is a master of her craft.
The backdrop on the stage is a shirred blood-red curtain that calls to mind the opening credits of a gothic I Love Lucy. Death ( a fantastic David Hull) appears as a heckler who challenges Bloom on her relationship with him. Hull played White Josh on Bloom's show My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and is a fine performer in his own right. The two have great chemistry and Death shoots some zingers. The line about staring into the abyss is funny and bleak. He does a hilarious song invoking Dear Evan Hansen and how no one saw the show or the movie. Death demands to be seen and acknowledged. This is where the show takes an unusual comic turn.
Bloom makes her brushes with Death into lovely songs about how a new mother is afraid of the baby dying. It is funny, I promise. Bloom takes the relatively new era of the American obsession with our pets as family and sings a song about Rainbow Bridge. That bit is peppered with minor pet insurance scams, surreal sympathy cards, and weird paintings of dogs. The projections designed by Hana Kim are items that Bloom claims are in her daughter's nursery. I can imagine what a sharp sense of humor that child will have.
I loved her story about the birth of her daughter. Bloom plays a clip of herself spread-eagled on the surgery table singing "Space Jam." She titles the video Epidural and I am still laughing. She lays out the specifics of giving birth during Covid and the chances of pooping on the delivery table. The pandemic takes a toll that tests her lack of faith and she finds herself praying to an entity that doesn't exist for her. She was gutted by losses and got more intimate with Death. The beautifully nuanced balance of tragedy and comedy is like nothing I have seen.
Bloom never veers into the very special After School program territory. How she comes to terms with Death and what may or may not come after is comedy as performance art. There is no pious moralizing. It is Bloom saying out loud what some people wish they had the guts to say. Sometimes life is shitty and Rachel Bloom will tell you how to use it as a scatological 'Kilroy was here.' It is not for the faint of heart or delicate sensibilities, so get over yourself and go see this show. I highly recommend Death, Let Me Do My Show.
Death, Let Me Do My Show plays through August 24 at Steppenwolf Theatre, 1650 N. Halsted St. Running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. For tickets and information, please visit www.Steppenwolf.org/Rachel Bloom,
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