STANDING UP FOR HUMANITY

Here are my criteria for a good night of comedy: 1) It needs to be surprising. 2) It needs to make me think. 3) It needs to promote values that make us better human beings. 4) Oh, it needs to be funny.

Chris Grace

Both Sardines (a comedy about death) at Huntington’s Maso Studio and 300 Paintings at A.R.T.’s Farkas Hall fulfill those criteria, and in very different ways. An evening spent at either show will bring many laughs and leave you inspired and thoughtful. Even if you can’t manage it, see both! They have some similarities: both are one-person autobiographical shows written and performed by men of roughly the same generation. Both shows won acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival; both artists are in extended residencies in the Boston area. Both shows feature narration based on a series of slides, and both invite audience engagement. Otherwise, they are very different.

Chris Grace

In Sardines, playwright and performer Chris Grace asks the audience to imagine a screen on the stage and then conducts a slide show of imaginary photos projected on the screen we imagine. Standing on stage with an equally imaginary clicker, he starts by “showing” us a slide of his family taken in 2011 standing in front of his sister’s house. Then he tells us that five of those in the photograph are now dead. This includes nearly everyone in Grace’s family, including some who were in their forties at the time of death. The inherent humor in the situation—watching a slideshow with invisible slides—helps to undercut the shock of this information. Grace reads a poem written by his mother shortly before her death that begins “People are the same / we all want the same thing.”

Chris Grace

For the rest of the one-hour performance, Grace (directed by Eric Michaud, also Grace’s husband and a performer in his own right), carries us along on a hilarious series of reflections on the meaning of life and loss, punctuated by commentary on Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park” and a sing-and-clap-along to Rhianna’s “Please Don’t Stop the Music.”  It’s about as much fun as you can have during a meditation on death, and it’s followed by the revelation that in addition to the loss of his family members, Grace’s long-time boyfriend also suffered a fatal heart attack at age 47. Grace explains that the title of the show refers to a variation on a hide-and-seek game in which people crowd into a single hiding space and leave the last seeker alone and wondering what has become of everyone else.

It’s a mix of good stand-up comedy and a philosophy lecture. Grace wraps it up by circling back to the poem written by his mother, which concludes by saying that “As long as people risk their lives for human rights / we still have hope / we still have time.”

Chris Grace

Australian Sam Kissajukian takes us on a very different yet equally hilarious journey. This time the slides are real, mostly of art works created by Kissajukian after he decided to step away from stand-up comedy to pursue a career as a visual artist despite his lack of training or background, simply because he found a beret, put it on, and decided he had become a painter. As much a meditation on the art market and capitalism as well as on his own evolving or deteriorating psyche, Kissajukian tells us about his five months of living in a windowless warehouse unit during what he eventually learns was a manic episode. For five frantic months, he threw himself into painting and art creation, often going without sleep.

Sam Kissajukian

Eventually, he adopts an alter-ego as “Pisscasso,” a sort of anti-artist. In Kissajukian’s Pisscasso era, he purchases 700 black T-shirts from a local discount store and in an effort to do the opposite of what the Spanish artist would do, “paints” them by using bleach to create designs through the absence of color.

Thank goodness the slides in Kissajukian’s show are real—I don’t think we could have imagined creations like his re-interpretation of Leonardo’s Last Supper or his manically created 28-page “business plan” shrunk down to an illegible 1-page PDF of circles and arrows presented to a potential investor. Little of what Kissajukian offers in his attempts to lure investors makes much sense, but his drive and energy succeed in attracting thousands of dollars to his project, which is exactly his point.

Sam Kissajukian

When the performance ends, the curtain on the stage is pulled back to reveal a gallery of Kissajukian’s art works and the audience is invited on the stage to view the paintings as well as the artist’s statements accompanying each one. Here’s an excerpt from the label from the painting titled Liminal Wimmelbild:

“This painting was my attempt to show the relationship between anxiety and avoidance. The landscape is populated with all the thoughts and ideas you have when moving towards a goal. The sky is where you hang anything not related to your goal, to do later. Eventually, the landscape of your mind reaches a saturation point, and your “to-do list” in the sky becomes full … ”

Sam Kissajukian

Kissajukian states at the beginning of the show that he abandoned stand-up because he was sick of telling jokes to drunks. He was looking for a way to express meaning and touch people with his performance. Apparently he has succeeded in his goal, because his quite serious reflections on mental illness and capitalism have won considerable recognition, and from all outward appearances, he has a firmer grip on reality than many.

photos of 300 Paintings by Evgenia Eliseeva
photos of Sardines by Annielly Camargo

300 Paintings
American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.)
Farkas Hall, 12 Holyoke St, Cambridge
ends on October 25, 2025
for tickets, visit A.R.T.

Sardines (a comedy about death)
The Maso Studio at the Huntington Theatre
264 Huntington Ave, Boston
ends on November 16, 2025
for tickets, call 617.266.0800 or visit Huntington