Mary Lynn Rajskub
By Ben Kharakh
Mary Lynn Rajskub plays Chloe on 24, but she's loved by comedy fans for her role in the seminal programs The Larry Sanders Show and Mr. Show with Bob and David. Rajskub herself is a very talented and hilarious stand up comedian, and you'll be able to experience her comedy first hand when she brings her show The Complications of Purchasing a Poodle Pillow to the Rex Theater on November 28th.
Will you be performing The Complications of Purchasing a Poodle, the show you do at the Steve Allen Theater?
Yes I am.
What is this particular show about?
The show I'm doing now is a lot of observations about people, relationships gone wrong -- there's a threesome-gone-wrong story, actually -- and I talk about a trip to Washington, D.C., where Rush Limbaugh kissed me on the lips.
Does your own life ever get as dramatic as 24?
No. I have a life of leisure.
What sort of leisurely activities has being on 24 afforded you?
It’s afforded me to live in a house with dogs. I can paint, write, as well as perform comedy.
With performing comedy, how do the fans of 24 react to the sort of comedy you perform?
What I do on stage is far away from what I do on 24 with Chloe. Every once in a while I get a mom and daughter who look shocked after the show and I feel the need to apologize that that wasn’t Chloe, but they like it anyway. My stand up is personal and non-traditional. I interrupt myself a lot and there are not a lot of written jokes. The humor comes out of the state I’m in or the situation that I’m talking about and the way that I’ve interpreted that situation.
Since you’ve preformed in the UCB Theater in LA, have you ventured into the Scientology building, which is very nearby?
I have. It was like walking into a beautiful castle. I had a very nice smoothie there, and enjoyed incredibly manicured gardens and lawns, and walked up a big marble staircase. It was magical.
Did you take their personality test?
I have taken their personality test before. The people who I’ve met who are scientologists, I find are pretty appealing and very friendly. It seems to work very well in their lives. I don’t understand it. It seems odd to me, but there are a lot of aspects that make sense, except the aliens part. That doesn’t make sense.
You said that your show deals with things that confuse you. What are some things that confuse you?
Relationships. Talking to people. Simple interactions. I used to be a waitress, and just in taking someone’s drink order I would be making 6 different faces and a customer would ask if I was okay, and I couldn’t make much sense out of it.
Do you think that your experience as a waitress has given you a new respect for the profession in general?
Yeah, for sure. It’s really hard. And you have to be a certain kind of person that let's things roll off their back and can deal with people easily. I can’t do either.
Has that gotten easier with time?
Definitely. I used to go on stage and just saying my name would elicit laughter because it was very hard for me to say my name, and then I would start saying , “What do you want from me? What are you looking at?” So my comedy grew from my own uncomfortably with myself. I’m not the type of person to go on stage, but it works.
You started out as a performance artist. What did your earlier performances entail?
I had a cardboard podium that didn’t stand up well, and a pointer made out of a hanger and many scraps of writing that were taped together. So one of my performances was an orator who was trying to speak but couldn’t get the words out right. I also created a wall of cardboard and would sit in the center, and would say I was throwing out heads in bags and would through them over the wall. I took some ice cream on a bus on the way to school, and would explain it as an art piece, which I couldn’t tell you now. It was things like that.
When did you move toward the story-based style of performing?
Well, for me, personally, a lot of the conceptual stuff was because I didn’t know how to speak as myself. I did a lot of open mic poetry nights and I started meeting comedians who were doing stuff there that they couldn’t do in comedy clubs because they were closing. I became attracted to the comedians because they were so well versed in their own personality, they would start talking about their appearances and personalities. They are very aware of how they are perceived, how they come across and how their own minds work. I was very attracted to that and much more interested in getting laughs than making people uncomfortable, which is what a lot of my early performance art seemed to do.
Growing up, did you have a sense of humor that was outgoing?
No, I would try to keep a straight face so no one would know what I was thinking of feeling. I internalized everything so when it came out it was goofy over the top behavior from being bottled up for days at a time.
What sort of things did you keep bottled up?
I just didn’t want anyone knowing what I was thinking or feeling. It seemed very dangerous to me.
Who was your role model growing up?
I would definitely say Laverne and Shirley. They had their own apartment, they were always getting into hijinks, playing pranks, and just trying to make it in the world.
Do you engage in hijinks?
I’m trying to come up some smart-ass answer like, "I often get part time jobs in cake factories and let the conveyor belt keep going while all the cakes fall to the floor." But I’d say my time for that is onstage doing comedy.
When did you start what you do onstage as stand up?
I don’t know what else to call it. It’s me on stage alone with the audience, and it’s funny. I’ve always preformed in the same rooms as stand up comedians, and those are all my good friends who’ve influenced me. I’ve always gone to different places and have done five, then, or thirty minutes sets. It’s always shifting. I have things that are bits, but I’m also not interested in comedy clubs. I think there’s a place for humor that's not standard.
Have you ever performed in a comedy club setting?
Yes.
What was that like?
I did a benefit at The Comedy Store. I thought it would be funny if instead of going up onstage when they introduced me if I'd start screaming, “No! I don’t want to go!” and a stagehand would tell me, “You have to go, you have to go!” But I'd keep screaming and she'd eventually have to push me out onstage, but that just made people uncomfortable. I thought I'd win them back by changing the black microphone cover to a different goofy color. They didn’t care for that too much. Since then I've discovered ways of letting the audience in on the joke instead of making them uncomfortable right off the bat.
What are some ways of going about that?
Now I’m more confident I’ll usually explain to the audience that I think things are funny when they aren’t. And sometimes I’ll do the material of Gallagher to warm them up.
You said you would only do the same material once. What inspired that?
The nature of performance. There’s something really exciting about doing something that is just an idea and doing it in front of the audience. And if it works, you feel brilliant like the greatest person in the world, and if it doesn’t, you feel like the worst person in the world. It doesn’t make any sense. No one can go out and be prepared and expect it to work.
When did you start doing the same material more than once and start honing bits.
That’s what this show is, although it does change around a lot depending on the audience. But I have a few set pieces that I go back to, and have found a way to make them the best version of the story possible.
Do you plan on performing in places outside of Pittsburgh, like New York?
I would love to go to New York. The only issue with that is being on 24, and being on hold for whenever they call me in, so it keeps me from doing runs in theatres, so I have to do one night here and there, but I’m also doing it in Chicago as well.
How does something like that or fame in general mesh with your personality?
It’s pretty easy to embrace, because most people want to talk about 24, which is easy to talk about, because it has nothing to do with me. So we talk about how much they love 24 and I feel weirdly validated “Yay, I got some attention” It’s twisted really
Do people try to talk to you about something that doesn’t have to do with 24?
Not really. Only you.
Do you want it to stay that way?
Sometimes, depending on my mood. It’s easier not talking about your personal life.
You mentioned on your Talk Show with Spike Feresten appearance that people are touching you when they come up to you. That’s not something I thought about before.
I’m happy that I have a character that people like, but sometimes people will hug me and touch me and want to talk to me in a way that has nothing really do with me. I think it’s great, I would never do that, but I think it’s great that that’s how much people love the show.
Do you think there should be guidelines for meeting Mary Lynn?
Ask me what mood I’m in. Do I need a hug? Sometimes it’s nice. Sometimes I haven’t showered and it’s not so nice. Smile, keep it under two minutes. Definitely tell me how you got turned onto 24 and how you watch it.
Have you had a meeting with a fan that lasted much longer than 2 minutes?
Yeah. They drag on. One time a guy met me in the parking lot of the Steve Allen theatre and, I don’t have much experience dealing with this sort of stuff, he kept talking to me, so I kept talking back, and he said he wanted to make a collage of me, and wanted me to meet him somewhere so he could make pictures of me. He was so nice and polite up to that point that it was so awkward. What do you say at that point, “Fuck you man!”? So I was just like, "Well, I don’t know. Thank you though." It probably shouldn’t have gone that far in the first place.
That's intense! So, do you have plans to record a DVD or a CD perhaps?
Definitely. I’m just trying to find the right venue and the right people to tape it. But I’m very excited to do that.
I know there’s the AST Records label that just formed up there. Are you interested in that?
I haven’t talked to them, but that would be great.
Are there any other projects that you’re working on or contemplating?
I’m developing stuff. I’m writing a script about me. It’s a short film. It’s not the best short film, but it has its moments. It’s called the Hitman with me and Paul F. Tompkins, I’m developing it into a screenplay. The way the short is, it’s pretty gaggy. Once I started thinking about it I realized that logically it doesn’t work, but I love the concept. It’s a girl who falls in love, gets her heart broken and becomes a hitman, but it doesn’t really work too well.
Photo by Kathy Willens / AP