'Hospital Hour' Off-Broadway review — Rachel Kaly offers a healthy, hilarious dose of dark humor

Read our review of Hospital Hour off Broadway, an autobiographical solo comedy show written and performed by Rachel Kaly at The Culture Club through November 23.

Summary

• Hospital Hour is an hourlong solo comedy show by Rachel Kaly, in which she turns some of her life's darkest events into wickedly dark humor
• She skillfully subverts the idea of the trauma comedy show by avoiding oversentimentality or forced catharsis and just lets the jokes be
• The show is recommended for fans of dark humor and fans of Kaly on shows like Jury Duty

Therapy, trauma, and mental health have become such well-worn topics in the contemporary stand-up landscape that comedians like Gary Gulman and Katie Boyle have titled their specials The Great Depresh and Terapy: Just Me, My Self-Help, and I, announcing what to expect up top. There’s generally an air of resilience in these acts: They’ve ultimately kept calm, carried on, and maybe did some healing in the process of doing their show.

Not so for Rachel Kaly (Jury Duty), who kicks off her show Hospital Hour with Rachel Platten’s ubiquitous-in-2016 anthem “Fight Song,” cutting the track short as she steps on stage. Kaly begins her set by describing her various mental and family issues and pulls no punches, saying the first bad thing that happened to her was being born. It’s direct and a little cheeky, as if Kaly is shrewdly aware of how the solo show itself has become a mere laundry list of awful things that have happened to the performer. Kaly delivers this and a cascade of other personal tragedies with the same droll cadence, each diaristic joke containing the air of an eyeroll, as if she'd rather be doing anything else.

But this simmering, almost sarcastic tone is to Hospital Hour’s benefit, a clever underdelivery that shows she recognizes the absurdity of the genuinely upsetting events of her life: her OCD, her dysfunctional relationship with her father, her myriad hospital visits, and her failed attempts to get correct diagnoses and treatments, along with more banal but no less amusing anecdotes — like how, at her bat mitzvah, one of the only people interested in lifting her up in the chair was her grandpa on dialysis. Kaly's deadpan remove makes the jokes land harder precisely because of her lack of sentimentality about them. It doesn’t make her stories less unpleasant or uncomfortable, but it prevents them from becoming maudlin. These are facts of her life, the fabric of who she is, yet not worth histrionics or a grand reclamation.

Slyly woven into Kaly’s sense of exasperation is a sincere consideration of the U.S. public health system. Kaly’s descriptions of lack of professionalism, the exhausting trial-and-error process, exorbitant costs of get treatment, and unequal treatment of certain mental health diagnoses are resonant, thoughtful, and wickedly funny.

One of the sharpest observations Kaly makes is that Hospital Hour does not offer her catharsis, nor does reliving these events provide neat solace. So why do it? Well, because Kaly is good at it and knows it, that’s why. And being good at something is sometimes all the prescription you need.

Hospital Hour summary

Comedian Rachel Kaly discusses the various ailments and tragedies she has experienced regarding her father, her mental health struggles, 9/11, her queerness, and suicidal ideations. With a desert-dry sense of humor, Kaly piles up the pure absurdity of experiencing one bad thing atop another in her gut-bustingly funny show.

What to expect at Hospital Hour

Hospital Hour runs 1 hour with no intermission. Kaly’s comedy is charcoal-dark, freely riffing on terrorism, absentee fathers, emotional abuse, attachment disorders, pedophilia, and suicide. She does this in front a wavy blue curtain and set (by Sully Ross) designed to look like a hospital hallway.

Who should see Hospital Hour

• Fans of dark humor will find Hospital Hour provocative and very funny.
• Fans of Chris Fleming and their unhinged comedy will be thrilled at the sharp and dynamic way they direct Kaly’s show.
• Those who know Rachel Kaly from Jury Duty season 2 may want to see a different, more personal side of her comedic style and career.

Learn more about Hospital Hour off Broadway

Rachel Kaly subverts the trauma comedy show by leaning into the strangest, most upsetting parts of her life and presenting them as everyday, embedded into the strangeness of life itself. And she offers some of the funniest deadpan humor this side of Mount Sinai.

Photo credit: Rachel Kaly in Hospital Hour off Broadway. (Photos by Emilio Madrid)