The one-woman show Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha (Ha7), is a combination of improvisational work and a new age TV talk show, like a futuristic Phil Donahue segment. Due to the nature of the production, every performance will be different from the previous one. The performer Julia Masli, who has staged the production around the world to great acclaim, is soft-spoken, with a hint of an Eastern European accent. She wears a flowing blue dress and robotic headgear with a light to scan those in attendance. Her left “arm” is a golden mannequin leg with an attached microphone, which she gently thrusts into people’s faces.
For most of the show, she delicately moves up and down the theater aisles, asking audience members, in almost hushed tones, “What is your problem?” Surprisingly, not only do theatergoers respond, but in doing so, they are not concerned or afraid to reveal personal issues. Maybe that is one of the reasons audiences have enthusiastically embraced Ha7 . In today’s world of social media, where disclosing personal information is second nature, divulging problems to a performer and audience is of little concern.
Masli doesn’t necessarily solve the struggles individuals bring up – when someone states their problem is plantar fasciitis, she brings the person to the front of the stage and then recruits a medical person to come up and advise them. However, as with all good improvisational performers, they have a plan and stock responses at the ready. So, when two audience members said they had problems sleeping, she conveniently wheeled out a bed and had both lie down for the remainder of the 70-minute performance (they were in bed for about 50 minutes). At the end of the show, there is a bit about having the audience donate a sock. I declined.
As individuals continued to populate the stage – there were ten by the end of the performance – a tableau of a community working together to solve each other’s problems, and maybe the trials and tribulations of society as a whole, comes into focus. It generated a tranquil feeling.
Ha7 can be funny. Many people in the theater the night I attended were in a giddy mood. My response was more muted, even though by the end of the production, I had grown to admire what Masli and director Kim Noble had conceived and implemented. The creative team of Sound Designer and Composer Alessio Festuccia; Lighting Designers Lily Woodford and Jennifer Fok; and Costumer Designers David Curtis-Ring, Annika Thiems, and Alice Wedge, all provide an atmospheric, sometimes other-worldly presence to the production.
My main issue with Ha7 is how Masli took advantage of a person in the front row who was grieving for his mother, a former registered nurse. She took this story, continually coming back to him and his pain throughout the show, which came across, at least to me, as somewhat exploitive. However, did his openness give her the unstated permission to incorporate his anguish into the show? Is Masli’s appropriation any different from the comments individuals post online?
Ha7, playing at Yale Repertory Theatre through February 7. Click here for dates, times, and ticket information.
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