EDINBURGH 2022: Marcia Belsky Guest Blog

Guest Blog: Marcia Belsky and Jake Cornell bring their show-within-a-show comedy to the Fringe

Marcia Belsky discusses parodying theatre tropes alongside comedy collaborator Jake Cornell

Comedian Marcia Belsky blogs for Broadway World about bringing Man and Woman (with comedy partner Jake Cornell) to a new audience in their Edinburgh Fringe debut. Here, she tells us about how writing a two-hander is a different skill to penning a stand-up show and what it's like working so closely with Jake.

Hi! I'm Marcia Belsky, one of the writers and stars of Man and Woman, a two-person comedy play parodying heterosexual love and all the "incisive and compassionate" films that have dissected relationships through the male gaze. Jake Cornell and I started writing the show in fall of 2021 and have been performing it in New York and LA since last October. And we are so unbelievably excited to take it to Fringe.

Jake and I had both been comedians in New York for years but didn't meet until a mutual friend introduced us during the pandemic and we discovered we lived on the same block and became a sort of outdoor pod. One day I watched one of Jake's Tik Tok's called "Heterosexual Male Monologue" and it made me laugh so hard because it was a parody of all the ridiculous, and oftentimes sexist, theatre monologues I had to watch boys do growing up (A Streetcar Named Desire, shows like that.) I started texting him manically about the female equivalent to those toxically masculine monologues where the women are supposed to be sacrificial to the men's struggle and happy about it. We started pitching ideas back and forth and Jake finally said, "what if we make this into an entire show about these two characters called Man & Woman?" I was ecstatic. A million ideas started pouring out of us and it went from there.

The show quickly expanded to be both about parodying these dramatic scenes/gendered tropes that we see over and over again in theatre but also about how theatre people themselves tend to be reverent to these tropes and think they are highly original in portraying them. The show begins with our two main characters: named "Marcia" and "Jacob" welcoming the audience to the premiere of this horrible play that "they" have written. Once the play begins, the tension between the two writers/actors becomes clear and the show slowly dissolves into disaster.

Compared to writing stand-up or musical comedy, which is what Jake and I have mostly done, writing a two-hander comedy narrative was really fun because you get to play with story and character on top of just writing jokes. In stand-up, it's one single voice, one single point of view, but in a show like this you get to have the two contrasting voices as well as the multiple points of view we're parodying. And there is also the more meta point of view of the show as a whole. So, playing with all of that really opens up the possibilities while at the same time focusing us by containing us within the world of this show.

Working with a partner can be extremely rewarding and so much less isolating than working alone. I wouldn't know, however. Jake is horrible. And he is definitely not helping me write this right now. Just kidding. It's

truly gratifying to have this show be a mix of our two senses of humour. Sometimes it takes a long time to find that perfect punchline that exists at the intersection of what we both find really funny, but when we find it there's this amazing moment where it clicks and it's like, "Yes! That's it! That's the line!" In general, I think having a partner just makes the whole thing so much more fun. It can take you out of your head and back into the show. It was so much easier to bring this show to stage because even on our first opening night, before a single audience member had seen it, we knew this show made each other laugh. But luckily, it made them laugh too.

Bringing it to Edinburgh came into conversation after the first time we performed the show in New York. This is both of our first times at the Fringe, and we have always wanted to come. Every time we perform the show, each new audience and their reactions gives us new ideas and moments to expand on. So, the idea of getting to do 25 shows in a row was really exciting. Also, because the show is parodying theatre tropes, performing it in a theatre festival felt like a perfect way to bring it to audiences that will really connect with it. I'm so honoured to have this show be at the festival and at Assembly and am so excited to connect with people after they see it. And I hope to see you there!

Jake Cornell and Marcia Belsky: Man and Woman, Assembly George Square (Studio 4), 6.15pm, 3-28 August (not 17)

Photo credit: Amir Khan

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