E4 TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2019 LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR
Things.” She also costars in
Tracy Morgan’s TBS come-
dy, “The Last O.G.,” and has
a number of film roles on the
horizon, including Eric An-
dre’s “Bad Trip.” Now, Had-
dish is coming back for her
friends and giving a plat-
form to women, people of
color and LGBTQ perform-
ers who, she says, the indus-
try often overlooks. Each of
the comedians will have
their own half-hour stand-
up special on Netflix in
“Tiffany Haddish Presents:
They Ready,” which debuts
Tuesday. In addition to host-
ing duties, Haddish execu-
tive produces alongside fel-
low stand-up Wanda Sykes
and comedy producer Page
Hurwitz.
“They Ready” joins Net-
flix’s growing slate of stand-
up series and specials, and
adds more marginalized
voices to the service, which
has faced criticism for the
lack of diversity on its come-
dy roster, particularly with
regard to women of color.
(The company recently an-
nounced that it’s tapped
“Saturday Night Live” cast
member Leslie Jones for a
comedy special, set to air
next year.)
In a mid-July interview,
Haddish and the relative un-
knowns of “They Ready”
talked about the impor-
tance of a worldwide plat-
form, the struggles they’ve
faced in the comedy world,
and why the heck they’re
crying so much.
A recurring theme of the
series is keeping promises
—this idea of, with success,
not forgetting to lift up
one’s peers. Tiffany, talk
about why this series was
important for you and what
you hope it accomplishes.
Haddish:Literally, when
I met everybody, I was like:
“Don’t worry, when I make
it, I’m gonna come back and
get you and we’re going to
the top. I don’t know what,
but I’m going to put you on
something.” I was always
raised to believe all you have
is your word. So, if you’re
always saying stuff to people
but never keep your promise
and never follow through,
then they’ll never take you
serious. And when you really
need some help, you’ll never
have the help you need. I
know I’m gonna need some
help in the future. And I
need all my people who I
believe are funny and have a
lot of talent — I’m going to
need them all to be on a
certain level. So when I say
to these executives at a
studio, “I want to put her in
this movie,” or “I want this
person,” those executives
will know that they can
deliver. I already know they
can. But I need the rest of
the world to see. [Begins
crying] I believe in all these
people, because all these
people have believed in me.
If this does well for Net-
flix, hopefully there’s anoth-
er season and I can get
another six comedians outhere. I know at least 40
comedians that I think are
legends in their own right,
but the world doesn’t know
about them yet. Listen,
when I first started doing
stand-up, a comic told me
the only way I was really
going to make money in this
business or get any stage
time is through other come-
dians. So build your re-
lationships. It’s through
other comics that you’re
going to work — not through
the club owners, not
through the promoters.There seems to be this
proliferation of specials
because of new platforms,
such as Netflix. But, even
so, did having a comedy
special seem out of reach?
Chaunté, you’re getting
emotional — what does it
mean to have a platform
like this?
Macie:Let it out.
Wayans:I grew up in a
business with a famous
family and I’ve been at this
for 15 years. I’ve had an
agent that’s been trying to
tell me to show my [breasts]
and I should wear a wig and
this and that — basically, I
should be a ... [Marilyn]
Monroe [type] and all these
things. But the fact that I
get to have this platform
where I can be exactly who I
wanted to be, because I
wanted to be different and
I’ve had people come up tome at shows and stuff like
that and just talk about how
much I’ve touched them. I
don’t give a ... if it’s one
person or however many. I
just want to be a different
voice. [Tiffany] gave me that
platform.I think it’s important to
note for our readers how
emotional this conversa-
tion is for everyone. What’s
underneath all that?
Macie: I think you work
so hard as women, and as
people in the queer commu-
nity. I always send [Aida]
screenshots of comedy club
calendars, and there was
one time where it was like 72
weeks and just two women.
And one was a medium!
And you’re like, “Oh my
God, you have to talk to the
dead to get stage time as a
woman.” So when you work
hard ... to finally have a place
or to have friends that are
willing to help, who know
how hard the struggle is, it’s
emotional. Everybody here
is so diverse, so wonderful.
Everybody had a poignant
message. It’s like: how did it
take this long for a group of
people like us to come to-
gether for something like
this?
Rodriguez: I would say
also for me, [Tiffany] was
very aware of my struggle
and she is one of the people
that I was very transparent
with about my life. I was
homeless with two kids. We
slept in a Best Western. We
slept in a trunk. And people
would ridicule me for that
because they would be like,
“You are trying to achieve
this stardom thing or what-
ever and you’re making your
kids struggle.” But the
reality of it is that I don’t
have a degree. It’s not like I
could say “I’m going to quit
comedy and go be a doctor.”
I would struggle no matter
where I was because of my
situation.
[Tiffany’s] my mentor in
comedy. She’s younger than
I am. [But] she’s the one
that taught me how to make
my money. She taught me a
lesson on self-worth that mymother didn’t teach me. So
when she said, “I want you
to do this special and you
are going to make this
amount of money because I
believe you’re worth it,” who
isn’t going to fall to pieces?There’s been some discus-
sion on the pay gap in the
comedy circuit — and
really, every industry —
for women and people of
color —
Rodriguez:It’s alive
everywhere. But money is a
form of validation, like it or
not. It’s an assertion of
worthiness when people say,
“You’re worth this much to
us in comedy.”
I worked at a private
bank for many years while
doing stand-up. I went six
years sleeping three to four
hours a night on average
because I would go from a
comedy club to taking my
kids to school to my job. I
couldn’t sleep because I
wanted to do stand-up.
Tiffany taught me an impor-
tant lesson. She would say,
“You cannot leave your
house for free. You have
children. So now you’re
paying to do comedy be-
cause you’re using your
gas.” When I was able to
make a living doing stand-
up, that made me feel like a
fully formed human being. I
felt like I could say, “Yeah,
I’m a comedian. I’m a pro-
fessional comedian and I
have dinner on the table.”
That is powerful.
Monroe:As much as I
hope that this series is
remarkably successful for
all of us, I hope that
Tiffany’s teaching to all the
other comedians that have
some power pays it forward
to so many other people.
There’s other comics who
have A-list star power that
know 50 or 60 [up-and-
coming comedians]. Put
people on. Because some-
times people’s talent isn’t
enough to get them on. If
Tiffany wouldn’t have
reached back to give me this
opportunity, I would still be
doing drag shows and hus-
tling to take care of my threekids. I would be somewhere
else. But as soon as you say
you did an epic special with
Tiffany Haddish, the clubs
are like, “How much you
want? Come on down.” I
couldn’t do that before.What has you hopeful
about where comedy is
heading and what has you
frustrated right now?
Ashley: What frustrates
me? How long it took.
Everybody keeps reminding
me, “But look at everything
you learned. Look at every-
thing you went through.
Look at the stories you can
tell now.” And yes, sure.
[But] I feel like the industry
sometimes waits so long on
some really good people
that by the time they get
there — it’s almost like, I’ve
seen people who finally get
their specials, and they look
older, they look tired. You’re
like, damn, they went
through so much.
Williams: What you have
to go through as a female is
hard. When I first started
doing comedy, I learned ...
to hang out with the [guys]
cause as a female it was
gonna be hard. So you had
to hang out with the men.
You had to get to know the
who-knows-whos to get you
on the stage. But they ain’t
gonna let you go to a certain
point before they ask you
[to sleep with them]. I
wasn’t doing that. When it
got to that point, that’s
when my comedy came to a
halt.
Wayans:I just hope this
opens a space for all of us to
be able to do more than just
one room. Sometimes peo-
ple box me into the LGBT,
and black rooms, and stuff
like that. But literally for all
of us to just be able to go out
and be able to do anything.
Ashley: And hopefully,
people who watch this who
are aspiring comedians —
or in any field that they’re in
—see that we’ve all been
doing this over 10 years, 15
years, 20 years and we’ll see
that we never give up. And
that they shouldn’t either.
Keep going.Haddish’s unsung faves in Netflix specials
[Haddish, from E1]
THE STARin a scene from her series of comedy
specials, “Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready.”Adam RoseNetflix‘Tiffany
Haddish
Presents:They Ready’
Where: Netflix
When:Anytime
Rating:TV-MA (may be
unsuitable for children
under the age of 17)living room of Fefu’s home.
The circular structure of the
play, in which the characters
gather, disperse and provi-
sionally reassemble, is per-
haps another reason the
work isn’t widely performed.
Fornés, like Fefu, was an
audacious thinker eager to
break new ground, and “Fefu
and Her Friends” refuses to
conform to stylistic or ideo-
logical conventions. The play
is exploratory in both con-
tent and form. Rather than
setting out to confirm one
strain of thinking on sexual
politics, it dynamically dram-
atizes the interplay of per-
spectives of eight female
characters, gay and straight,
all of whom are grappling
with the warping effect of pa-
triarchal culture on their
sense of self.
“Fefu and Her Friends,”
directed with passionate
conviction by Denise Blasor,
holds a unique place in mod-
ern American drama in part
for the way it confronts the
shared yet unspoken terrors
of female identity. It’s one of
those plays that, in validating
the morass of feelings left be-
hind by oppression, expands
the range of possibilities of
being.
Played with just the right
rough vivacity by Tiffany
Cole, Fefu launches the
drama with an offhand re-
mark that startles her
friends: “My husband mar-
ried me to have a constant re-
minder of how loathsome
women are.” Seeing that her
gambit has disquieted Cindy
(Tanya Gorlow) and Chris-
tina (Dominique Corona),
the outrageous yet ever-gra-
cious Fefu explains her at-
traction to repulsive ideas by
way of a metaphor.
In the same way that peo-
ple are fascinated when they
turn over a smooth stone in
damp soil and find that it’s
“slimy and filled with fungus
and crawling with worms,”
she is drawn to the dark side
of everyday reality. “If you
don’t recognize it ... it eats
you,” she whispers.
But something is eating
Fefu from within. As she con-
fides to flamboyant, free-
spirited Emma (Sydney A.
Mason), “I am in constant
pain. ... It’s not physical, and
it’s not sorrow.” She wonders
if she’s lacking “a spiritual lu-
bricant,” without which “life
is a nightmare, and every-
thing is distorted.”
Dreams play an impor-
tant role in “Fefu and Her
Friends,” which dips into thesurreal as a natural extension
of the real. Hallucinations
also figure prominently. Julia
(played by Sandy Duarte
with pulverizing emotion),
who’s been in a wheelchair
since a strange hunting acci-
dent left her unable to walk
even though the bullet ap-
parently only hit a deer, suf-
fers from horrific visions of
judges persecuting her for
being a woman.
“Hallucinations are real,
you know,” Julia explains to
the other women before their
rehearsal for an upcoming
presentation on the role of
the arts in educational re-form. “They are not like
dreams. They are as real as
all of you here.” As real even
as the internalized voices en-
suring women stay in their
subordinated place.
The conflict between Fefu
and Julia, a subterranean
struggle fueled by the love
and concern both women
have for each other, shapes
the drama in mysterious
ways. Julia can see that Fefu
is in danger while Fefu is frus-
trated that her bright and
once fearless friend has re-
signed herself to death.
A gun Fefu jokingly fires in
the first act at her husband(who remains outside in a
temporary banishment of
the patriarchy) comes into
play in the final act in accord-
ance with Chekhov’s rule
that a firearm must not go to
waste in a drama. Naturally,
Fornés’ application of this
law is unique to her, and one
of the compelling interests of
“Fefu and Her Friends” is try-
ing to understand an ending
that departs from the limita-
tions of logic to find meaning
in symbolism and theatrical
tableau.
The acting in Blasor’s pro-
duction, which makes ingen-
ious use of various spaces at
the Odyssey through the de-
tailed decor of scenic de-
signer Frederica Nascimento
and the moody lighting of
Katelan Braymer, is stylized
in the manner of a 1930s mov-
ie. At moments the frisky
mannerisms of the women
(dressed in period costumes
designed by Blasor and Josh
LaCour) put me in mind of
George Cukor’s “The Wom-
en.” The reference isn’t com-
pletely incongruous, as
there’s a frolicsome quality to
Fornés’ writing. But the
interaction, even when a wa-
ter fight breaks out over who
will do the dishes, is never
nasty. A flirty, rambunctious
affection prevails.
Blasor elicits the neces-sary spirit of camaraderie for
a play that bestows even on
its splintered audience a
heightened sense of connec-
tion. If all the characteriza-
tions aren’t fully formed, the
teamwork is nonetheless ex-
emplary.
Cole’s Fefu, with her Mae
West shrugs and fierce qual-
ity of carefree love, and Duar-
te’s piercing Julia, a soul
writhing in confined tor-
ment, are the emotional core
of the production. But mov-
ing work from Mason’s ma-
jestic Emma, Corona’s con-
ventional yet reflective Chris-
tina, Cynthia Yelle’s romanti-
cally grieving Paula, Gorlow’s
level-headed Cindy, Alexis
Santiago’s cheerfully prag-
matic Sue and Jennifer Lee
Laks’ poignantly conflicted
Cecilia contributes to the
depth of feeling.
“Fefu and Her Friends”
isn’t falsely consoling, but it
does uphold a community’s
potential to heal identities
that have been battered and
bruised by the larger society.
Fornés’ recognition that “we
cannot survive in a vacuum”
is given lasting texture by her
understanding, as ex-
pounded in Cecilia’s educa-
tional philosophy, of the im-
portance of being “sensitive
to the differences in ourselves
as well as outside ourselves.”FEFU(Tiffany Cole), front right, launches the drama with an offhand remark that startles her female friends in 1935 New England.Photography by Enci BoxStrong
revival
for
Fornés’
‘Fefu’
‘Fefu and
Her Friends’
Where:Odyssey Theatre,
2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd.,
West Los Angeles
When: 8 p.m. Fridays-
Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays
(additional performances
on select weeknights),
through Sept. 29
Tickets: $32-$37
Info:(310) 477-2055,
Ext. 2; Odyssey
Theatre.com
Running time: 2 hours,
20 minutes[‘ Fefu,’from E1]
CYNTHIA Yelle, left, Sydney A. Mason and Jennifer
Lee Laks plays some of Fefu’s friends at the Odyssey.