How tall is that first-grader?

How tall is that first-grader?

Gary Gulman confronts heights, depths in his solo show off Broadway

Gary Gulman (Michaelah Reynolds)
Gary Gulman (Michaelah Reynolds)

Gary Gulman says he is no Pagliacci. At least most of the time.

“I think we all are Pagliacci to some extent,” he told me in a Zoom interview. “But I’m not Pagliacci, because I’m so full of joy. I have my moments. But when I’m not ill, I’m very content and capable of great joy and love and light.

“So, no, I’m not Pagliacci, but I certainly can identify with the sad clown.”

Mr. Gulman stars in “Grandiloquent” at the off-Broadway Lucille Lortel Theatre in Manhattan. It is a hilarious tour de force, a solo show, which he wrote, that proves Mark Twain’s aphorism that comedy equals tragedy plus time.

And therein lies the challenge.

Mr. Gulman knows tragedy. He suffers from depression. He began thinking about suicide when he was just 7 years old, and that is likely to be the centerpiece of anything written about the show — not the comedy. Which is a shame.

Mr. Gulman grew up in a Jewish household in Peabody, Mass. “We weren’t that observant,” he said. “My mother did not keep kosher. My father had grown up in an Orthodox home, but they split up when I was 1.”

In the show he says, in a Boston accent: “My mother will always quickly interject: one and a half. One and a half, honey. Daddy left when you were one and a half. Don’t exaggerate.

“One and a half. Yeah, one would be unforgivable. One and a half, come on. I was almost out of the house.”

Back on Zoom: “Before I started Hebrew school, I was familiar with the synagogue, because both my brothers — they were 10 and 13 years older than me — were bar mitzvahed and went to Hebrew school there. I went for  five years, until I was a bar mitzvah.”

Perhaps eager to prove his bona fides (and generate a laugh) he adds: “I am quite familiar with the Old Testament. I read Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud and Jerzy Kosiński. Up until he was disgraced, I was a big Woody Allen fan. And I love Albert Brooks and Larry David.”

Stop, I tell him. You had me at Philip Roth.

His life was relatively normal until he finished first grade. That summer he was shocked to discover his father, Philip, fought school authorities to have him held back. Even though Gary excelled academically, Philip did not believe his son was sufficiently mature to advance.

“Not mature enough,” Mr. Gulman tells his audience. “I’m precocious. I was very aware of that word. It was said about me all the time.”

When he asked Philip what he should tell kids about why he stayed back, his dad said, “‘You tell them you didn’t stay back. You were held back.’ Nothing puts bullies in their place like semantics.”

Another issue is that Mr. Gulman, who is  6 feet 6 now, towered over his classmates even when he was in the first grade the first time. The second time around he “was frequently mistaken for a teacher’s aide.”

I asked where his mother, Barbara, was in all this. “She always describes it as, ‘You know, daddy.’ She was afraid to question him. It was a bummer, but that was the dynamic in the household.”

His teacher during his repeat year — a real-life Delores Umbridge (from Harry Potter) or Miss Trunchbull (from Matilda) was no help. Mr. Gulman calls her Ayn Rand. He tells his audience: “During a sabbatical after ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ she became a first-grade teacher. She was cold and spiteful and sarcastic,” and seemed to relish humiliating him.

It was around this time  “that I had now what are known as symptoms of clinical depression,” he said. As he’d take a tube of toothpaste out of the medicine cabinet, “I’d fixate on a glass bottle of dusty sleeping pills. I’d think that’s one answer.”

I asked him if there is a genetic  involvement in his depression, He says, yes, “there’s a genetic component. But there’s no doubt the trauma at a young age made me more susceptible to it.”

Not all of this is new to audiences. It was part of Mr. Gulman’s 2019 HBO comedy special, “The Great Depression,” and he discussed it again in his 2024 memoir, “Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the ’80s.”

“I wanted to do a book tour after the book came out, but I didn’t think people would be satisfied if I just read to them from my book,” he said. “So I wrote a standup show based on a few of the incidents from the book.” A friend who saw the standup version told him that he thought it had the potential to be a staged performance.

Mr. Gulman has no qualms about opening up to audiences, largely because of the feedback he received following the “Great Depression”. “I was rewarded for that both artistically and in terms of more people coming to see me and telling me that I was connecting in a different way and on a deeper level,” he said.

He felt that a theatrical setting allowed him greater freedom than a nightclub did. His greatest fear: “I had to get comfortable being unfunny for long stretches of time. That’s uncomfortable for me, because I’ve used comedy and laughter as a coping mechanism, a way to get acceptance.”

In the show, he asks his psychiatrist if — given his subsequent success — the turmoil he went through growing up was a blessing in disguise.”

“Are you serious?” his doctor said. “You want to tell that 7-year-old that nightmare was worth it because he got to be the inspiration for an HBO special that was overlooked come award season? You have an energy. You have talent. You were gonna have an impact no matter what.

“You would have done it sooner with less anguish.”

Those comments reflect the nuance and ultimate positivity of the show.

And for the record, there are also a lot of laughs.

“Grandiloquent” is scheduled to run through February 8.

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