From the first chorus of her opening song, “You Should Know Where the Clit Is,” comedian Gwen Coburn establishes herself as a funny foul-mouthed female Noel Coward, employing her pleasant singing voice on witty piano tunes about emotional labor, awful online dating profiles and daddy issues. (Paranoiacs might want to give it a pass, because there’s a song that’s totally about you.)
But although a PowerPoint presentation on Coburn’s mortal fear of poisonous snakes (which she calls “terrifying murder noodles”) and confessions about her shameful past as an improviser (the “Disney adults” of the performing arts) initially paint Sad Girl Songs as a cabaret comedy, her unsettling eye contact and intermittent passive-aggressive outbursts toward the tech booth signal that there’s something sinister lurking beneath the surface.
Indeed, what seemingly starts as a lightweight spoof of the battle between the sexes soon spirals into painfully personal territory, as Coburn’s sexual exploitation by a trusted instructor — and the PTSD-related depression it triggered — increasingly intrudes on her ha-ha. What first looks like a loosey-goosey lark eventually is revealed as a darkly feminist drama, as Coburn reboots Ovid’s legend of Medusa to address the rape-minimizing language we use as “Vaseline on the lens of our myths” and unpack her own emotional petrification.
This may be the saddest comedy at the Festival, but it’s also a boldly brave work about an important but overlooked issue, that bracingly blurs the line between theatricality and truth. Sad Girl Songs is a the rare Fringe show that took me completely by surprise, and Coburn’s hilarious yet harrowing performance captured my heart.
Renaissance Theatre Co.
415 E. Princeton St., Orlando, FL
Sad Girl Songs: A Comedy Show
GC Entertainment
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This article appears in Summer Guide 2023.