Hosted by Ganz and McGathy, the show featured raw and hilarious personal stories from Ike Barinholtz, Margot Leitman, and Derek Waters. It opened with a brilliantly exaggerated and self-deprecating photo essay of McGathy and Ganz as they dramatized the vicious emotional cycle of relationships, from bubbly elation to agonizing pain and back again. Barinholtz began the personal explaining why, in his words, “I’m a Bad Person.” Surely shoving a girl’s embroidered hand towel up your butt to stop her from hearing you fart noxious gases, replacing said towel on her bathroom towel rack where she’ll likely use it later, then having sex with her would qualify as bad. However, you couldn’t help but forgive his sin, the modest way he described his transgression and himself (“I would say I’m in-between the Walbhergs. I’m not Mark, but not Donnie either.”) Waters was similarly endearing. “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without Shit in Your Pants” featured an even more grotesque episode of bowel dysfunction. Poor Waters succeeds in not crapping himself during a date with a long-time love only to lose it on the drive home. The gents were truly refreshing in their honest appraisals of their dating hiccups.
When it came to the ladies, Leitman during her story, “Shawshank Redemption,” managed to be both genuine and gloating. That said, it was Ganz and McGathy who took female comedy to the next level. They were post-gender, with romantic follies men and women could relate to. “I hope you have as good a day as you look,” Ganz wittily recounted being told by a love-struck veteran when she worked at her local YMCA. I’ve had my fair share of absurdly vague compliments, the kind easily open to interpretation, but this was on top of it the clumsiest expression of affection I’ve ever heard. As a former fat-girl myself, who also wore over-sized sweatshirts and pined for boys who didn’t know my name in middle school, I am still in awe of McGathy’s personal saga. She didn’t just tell the story of the Christian youth theater group who threw her a going away party even though most of them didn’t know who the heck she was. She played the VHS recording of it from 1998. Turning personal lows into comic fodder is nothing new, but McGathy’s use of media to make her point was as gutsy as it was cutting edge. Thanks to a cast willing to bear all their emotional heartache, “This Feels Terrible” was not terrible feeling at all. It was a delightful reminder of how crazy love really is.
****
Wish I could have been there!