September 1, 2000 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

Pop Tarts for the obsessive-compulsive

Paula Poundstone gives a freeform chat to a rapt audience

Reviewed by Janet Macoska

Cleveland-The Ohio Theatre was packed with a mixed gay and straight audience last week for an intimate chat with comedian Paula Poundstone. The chat originated mostly, but not always, from the 41-year-old Boston comedian, who identified herself as obsessive-compulsive.

"It's not that I don't want to listen to people," she said. "I very much want to listen to people. I just can't hear them over my talking."

on

Certain audience members made efforts to be heard over Poundstone's talking. One woman fixated Poundstone's stories of her early job at the International House of Pancakes, and continued to obsessively and compulsively blurt out phrases like “IHOP” and “blueberry pancakes" at unusual and inappropriate moments.

A cell phone went off during the performance. Poundstone initially ignored it, then paused, curious that the owner allowed it to ring three times before silencing it. Perhaps he was playing hard to get, allowing the answering machine to pick up the call?

Poundstone's

comedic style

plays like a freeform jazz musi-

cian. You know there are certain notes she intends

to hit during a performance, but often she finds herself happily riffing

on subjects, never quite certain where she's going to finish, then forgetting what she wanted to tell you in the first place. Structure is not a concept she seems pleased to embrace. The unpredictable flow of the performance sometimes proved disconcerting, but her offbeat and personal observations on life encouraged the rapt attention and devotion of her audience.

A good deal of the evening's material surrounded her off-stage hectic life as a single mom of four foster and adopted children, three rabbits and nine cats. There were stories about day camp and dance recitals, as well as the difficulties in getting the kids to graduate from "guppies" to "minnows" in swimming class.

At one point during the show, the standup comedian became "exhausted" and continued her observations and monologue horizontally, on her back, lying on the stage. She rolled over only to accept some gifts of Pop Tarts from members of the audience. A major discussion about this morning breakfast delicacy followed, with musings about the Pop Tart 800 number for customer service, and the food pyramid diagram on each Pop Tart package.

Appalled that the package recommended a whopping fifteen servings in different food groups per day for balanced nutrition, Poundstone concluded that a couple of Butterfingers daily would serve the same purpose.

Poundstone struggled to find an ending for her Ohio Theatre show, apparently a nightly difficulty for her. The evening before, in Chicago, she had performed at an outdoor festival. The promoters got tired of waiting for her act to end, and started the fireworks show behind her, while she was still onstage. Nothing that dramatic for Cleveland. The Pepsi bottle she'd been sipping on all night was empty. Time to go home to the kids, cats and rabbits.

"Appalled that the package recommended a whopping fifteen servings in different food groups per day for balanced nutrition, Poundstone concluded that a couple of Butterfingers daily would serve the same purpose."