Produced, written, and performed by Jenna Suffern in association with bAKEHOUSE Theatre for Sydney Fringe Festival, It’s Not Funny, It’s Private is like stand-up comedy on the more intimate side. Jenna is well-known in the Sydney comedy scene, as co-host of the queer comedy room Two Queers Walk into a Bar and occasionally writing for Pedestrian.TV and Vice. Her Sydney Fringe debut is a hilarious quasi-authentic look into the life of an amateur comic (based on the actual worst week of her life).
Jenna Suffern the comedian plays Jenna Suffern the lost cause with commitment and flair, in a way that few others could pull off.
Suffern summons the audience into their lounge room and we are invited to bear witness to her unraveling in the wake of experiencing three of life’s biggest disasters – losing a job, losing a girlfriend, and choosing to embark on a career in standup comedy. While the comedy career appears to be on the rise (thanks to daily lengthy livestreams of her every waking thought), everything else appears to be going south for Jenna. They slowly reveal the circumstances of the breakup and explain (via literal song and dance) some of her more unhealthy coping mechanisms for heartbreak, with no intent to change her behaviour any time soon.
The thing that stands out most in this show is the skin-crawlingly uncomfortable feeling of secondhand embarrassment from the moment Jenna steps into what is now our collective living room. Under the direction of Courtney Ammenauser, she rides the line between cringe and comedy so carefully that I had to watch through my fingers at some points. But Suffern was brandishing a pink dildo with such vigour that I couldn’t help but be completely on board by the show’s end. Jenna Suffern the comedian plays Jenna Suffern the lost cause with commitment and flair, in a way that few others could pull off.
The staging and set design (also by Suffern) tells a brilliant story of lesbian heartbreak before Jenna even walks on stage. From the Sam Kerr devotional candle to the 1kg hummus tub discarded on the floor, each detail brilliantly depicts a painfully relatable moment in any young lesbian’s life. The only detail of the show that took away from the tragically intimate comedy was the inclusion of a pre-recorded and intentionally horrific impression of Lea Michele as inner-monologue. Suffern’s writing is strong enough to stand on its own without this added zany bit, and with time, this performer has the potential to excavate further emotional depth.
Apologies in advance for any Sydney-based sapphics, if you haven’t at some point been this person, you definitely know her. Get ready to be singing the catchiest song ever written about disassociating whilst watching reality television, and being faced with eerily specific embarrassments in this painfully hilarious show.
It’s Not Funny, It’s Private is playing in the Vault at KXT on Broadway until September 11, 2023. Tickets are $39-$49. Limited tickets remain and you can snap them up over here.
