My Needy Letters to Keith Urban

There are a lot of types of humor in this world.  There’s typical humor, of course, but so many little branches that grow from that.  There’s self-deprecating humor.  There’s sad humor.  There’s Jewish humor (trust me on that one, okay?)  There is just so much, and My Needy Letters to Keith Urban collects all of these different kinds of humors and puts them into one sixty minute show.  There was a lot more to the show, of course, but that variety of types of humor is what really framed this show and made it what it was.  It was unexpected, and it was totally awesome.

Michael Dermansky stands on stage, talking about his life as a stay at home dad, a Jewish man, and a man who desperately wants to meet Keith Urban.  That’s sort of the sad part, because, obviously, he’s never going to meet Keith Urban (though he does save a seat for him in the front row of every show).  We get to hear about his life, about his family, about every small thing and every big thing that makes him who he is.  And of course, we hear the letters.  Throughout the show, Michael reads his letters to Keith Urban.  And yes, they are a little needy.

Okay, so I’m going to back up for a second.  How did Keith Urban even come into the picture?  Well, Michael was watching infomercials at four in the morning (as we have all done at some point) and decides to order a Keith Urban guitar and DVD set…thirty songs in thirty days.  And everything kind of spiraled from there.  Through this, Michael develops a sort of attachment to the musician.  And then the letters start.  Letter after letter to Keith Urban, talking about his life, wanting to find a friend in the celebrity.  They were the sort of thing that most people would keep to themself.  I think Michael was amazing sharing this with us.

I’m pretty sure most people would think that Michael has a pretty sad life.  But I don’t think that at all.  Throughout My Needy Letters to Keith Urban, we see Michael really powering through.  Things that hurt him, things that make him happy.  Nothing in his life seems to go according to plan, but that’s how Michael figures things out.  Well, in his own style.  And a lot of that style is writing to Keith Urban about it.  Throughout the show, you can sort of see the ups and downs of this man’s life.  And they are pretty crazy ups and downs.

My Needy Letters to Keith Urban covered a lot of ground in an hour.  He talked about major things like gender roles.  He’s the one staying at home.  His wife is the one with the money.  Because of this, he is different.  The mothers don’t include him.  They don’t hug him in the hallway of the school.  His daughters have “gender neutral B-mitzvahs”.  Everyone knows gender roles are huge right now.  Michael wasn’t afraid to tackle them.  This was absolutely something I loved about this show.  And it was all through letters to Keith Urban.

I think my favorite part about this show was the raw emotion that was behind each and every word of it.  You could really feel Michael’s emotions.  He was going through a lot of hard times.  He talked about suffering self-esteem, and mental health issues.  This was all what got him writing to Keith Urban.  Michael needed someone to hear him, because he wasn’t necessarily getting that.  And even though Keith Urban was someone who will probably not be in Michael’s life, he became a character in the play that is Michael’s life.

After watching My Needy Letters to Keith Urban, talking about it a bit, and reflecting some, I can’t help but wonder where the line between real life and something created for the show was drawn.  Maybe there wasn’t a line.  Maybe those letters we saw on the projector were real letters.  I think they were.  I honestly don’t know where the line was drawn.  But I think that’s part of the beauty of this play.  There was so much information thrown at us.  There were emotions, and family issues, and deaths and B-mitzvahs and weird dreams.  We were watching something real.  I don’t care if anything was made up.

I’ve got to say, this is probably one of the more bizarre shows I’ve seen, but I absolutely loved it.  I thought the humor was totally on point.  I loved the insanity of it all, and the perseverance of one man dealing with a lot in his life.  I guess the whole thing was sort of a fun, sad, satirical piece, but it was well done.  I know this is the earlier stages of My Needy Letters to Keith Urban, and I think it’s just going to get better and better as Michael develops it.  I can’t wait to see it down the line and say, “Fuck yeah, that just got even better.”