Review: PATIENT 13 at Rogue Machine

Patient 13 is an intimate, bold dark comedy upstairs on the Henry Murray Stage at Rogue Machine on Melrose.  A smash hit at Hollywood Fringe, Patient 13 follows Gail Thomas on her journey with cancer, mental health, and becoming the subject of a medical study about the clinical use of magic mushrooms.  

This one-woman show is an inspired marriage with the Henry Murray Stage at Rogue Machine.  So far I have seen this unique Attic Theatre transformed into a Nazi bunker and a rehab facility, and each time, if I had not walked up the same stairs, I would swear I was a completely different space.  The superlative creative crew at Rogue Machine works wonders here.  I love the eccentric slanted walls and offbeat intimacy. With Patient 13, the irregularly shaped space surrounds Gail Thomas and makes the audience feel like part of the show, like you are just chatting with her in her living room.  

Gail Thomas is a “renegade Midwesterner who moved to the big city to be arty” and she has a Midwesterner’s cozy, comfy, heartwarming vibe, like a quirky needlepoint pillow.  Patient 13 is infused with this warm, conversational quality, a down-home, honest, and lived in feel, genuinely friendly in a way that can feel revolutionary in Los Angeles.  

Thomas describes herself as “independent with intimacy issues,” a Type A “downwardly mobile lawyer.”  She writes speeches for politicians, celebrities, and business people, from Bill Clinton to Martin Scorsese. So it feels surprising to hear her open up so candidly about everything from cancer to dating apps to depression, self-isolating, tripping on shrooms, and catching her bladder as it hemorrhages out of her vaginal stitches, but this is part of Patient 13’s unusual charm.  Gail Thomas is a born storyteller.  More than that, she makes you feel like her best friend in seconds.  

In fact, Patient 13 often feels like catching up with a dear friend who is a bit drunk, reliving every horrifying, weirdly specific, and staggeringly beautiful moment in the last few years.  You do not expect Thomas to say the things that she does, and it feels like mainlining her life, no filter.  

Patient 13 has a lot of great lines, like “I don’t mind false hope…I’ll take whatever kind of hope you’ve got” and “it took me until I was in my 40s to finally have sex in a bunk bed, but I did it.”  This is a show that is not afraid of darkness, but for all its talk of death, depression, anxiety, and medical nightmares, it has something quirky and uplifting about it, and the comedy really lands.  

It is always a pleasure to see a fresh, bold, personal show that is, quite simply, about telling a true story.  It reminds me of my favorite comedy show in Los Angeles, Christine Blackburn’s Story Smash (next up at the Lyric Hyperion in Silverlake on October 12th).  

Like Story Smash, Patient 13 is all about campfire storytelling, raw, uncomplicated intimacy, and laughing and celebrating the weirdness and wonder all around us.  Upstairs on the Henry Murray stage, the sold-out audience at Rogue Machine loved every moment of it.

Directed by Dan Oliverio and produced by Jennifer Sorenson. Written and performed by Gail Thomas.

Photos by David Haverty

Patient 13 runs at Rogue Machine through September 1st, upstairs on the Henry Murray stage.  Rogue Machine (in the Matrix Theatre) is located at 7657 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90046.  Tickets are available by calling 855-585-5185 or by clicking below:

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