Review: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Turns Your Problems into Laughter

Julia Masli slowly enters the Public’s Anspacher Theater, her face illuminated by a light attached to her wrist. An extraterrestrial princess, she wears a dramatic blue gown and a crown fashioned from a bicycle helmet, with another light protruding from the top like an alien appendage (the eye-catching costume is by Alice Wedge, Annika Thiems, and David Curtis-Ring).

“HA…HAAAAA,” she gutturally exhales, like she’s starring in an experimental revival of The Miracle Worker in which that iconic line has been radically revised. Moments later, she reveals her left arm, which is actually a golden mannequin leg with a microphone strapped to the foot.

“Prooo-bleeeem,” she coos as she points that leg in the face of an audience member in the front row, her breath heavy with anticipation. And this being New York City, a town where everyone seems to be in therapy, he immediately knew to start unloading about his thwarted ambition to learn how to play the guitar and his sense that time was running out—at least, that’s what happened at the performance I attended.

Masli isn’t exactly Dr. Freud. But her solo show, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA, undoubtedly leaves its audience feeling lighter and more joyful, giggly at having seen something bizarre and beautiful onstage, and comforted in the knowledge that none of our problems are particularly unique, nor are they impossible to overcome provided you approach them with patience and fortitude.

At my performance, Masli turned to another audience member, one who already plays guitar, who assured the man that it doesn’t take that long, and you can learn the basics from YouTube. Masli’s eyes lit up at this suggestion, as if she had uncovered the secret to world peace. Maybe she has.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA was a hit of the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and appeared off-Broadway last year at SoHo Playhouse (I didn’t see it then). This touring production is presented by DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, which hosted the show last summer. Clearly at lot of people have been touched by Masli’s witchy-clowny brand of charm. But is the show as funny as the title suggests?

Masli’s heavily depends on the kindness of strangers, meaning this show is 80 percent crowd work. But she’s not a stand-up in the vein of Don Rickles or Jiaoying Summers (who I consider the best stand-up trafficking in crowd work today). No one in the audience of HA HA HA HA HA HA HA will ever feel like the butt of one of Masli’s jokes, because she has none. She’s more like a matchmaker of human struggles, asking people about their problems and surveying the audience to see if anyone else has ever faced something similar.

Work burnout, heartbreak, fear about aging parents, despair at current events—they all made an appearance at the performance I attended, as I suspect they do at most performances. Like a marketing algorithm with a broad smile, Masli shows that our fears and desires are fairly common and there’s someone who can help. It’s simultaneously heartening and depressing.

Under the direction of Kim Noble, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA less resembles a comedy show than a seminar by a self-help guru. Alessio Festuccia and Sebastián Hernández’s sound design (and “improvised sound score implementation”) underscores that with knockoff-Enya spa music that slowly, imperceptibly transforms into what one might hear at a Las Vegas magic show at its most triumphant. Lily Woodford’s dramatic lighting further enhances the magic of this memorably 70-minute event. Surely, this subliminal prodding has something to do with the most remarkable aspect of the show.

That would be the incredible generosity of the audience, which instantly opens up to Masli and seems willing to accede to her every request as she conscripts viewers to do her bidding onstage (a word of advice for those planning to attend: wear socks you are comfortable parting with). It’s a testament to what a community can achieve when it works together. It also gave me a palpable sense of how cults are formed, especially in an age when so many people are desperate for direction from a charismatic leader—even if that person has a light-up dildo sticking out of her head.