Review: FEELING AFRAID AS IF SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN at Studio Theatre

FEELING AFRAID AS IF SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN at Studio Theatre is a hilarious and bawdy work that despite (or perhaps because of) its humor, is intense and emotionally beautiful. A British import from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the performance makes its DC debut in an electric production directed by Matthew Xia.

The Comedian (Steven Webb) is a 36-year-old gay man who has never been in a real relationship. Extremely insecure, anxious, and never willing to let his guard down, he avoids closeness because he can never shake the feeling that “something terrible is going to happen.” In his quest to find love on The App, he routinely finds emotionally absent hookups— but never anything serious.

That is until he meets The American. The American shakes The Comedian’s approach to romance and begins to peel back the layers that The Comedian has built up around himself. Suddenly, the extremely avoidant Comedian is now faced with the chance to build a real relationship. This is terrifying to him and leads him into fear, self-sabotage, and neuroticism, all self-deprecatingly described in vivid and colorful detail by The Comedian.

Steven Webb puts forward a one-man performance that is stunningly brilliant. Webb’s impressive mastery of delivery, pauses, tempo, and accents is a substantial part of this
genre-mixing and darkly funny piece. In particular, his portrayal of The Comedian as a man struggling with mental illness, trauma, and a complicated attachment style is exceptional. Rather than painting The Comedian as a clear-cut representation of an illness, the production presents these struggles as inherently human experiences amplified by his anxieties. His irrational yet recognizable fears allow the audience to understand the reasoning behind The Comedian’s repeated habits that stand between him and intimacy.

Supporting Steven Webb’s performance are Elliot Grigg’s well-managed lighting changes which allows for dramatic transitions as The Comedian bounces from thought to thought. In fact, all of the production’s direction, orchestrated by Matthew Xia, is finely tuned in a way that allows for laugh-out-loud observations to coexist with breakthroughs of The Comedian’s genuine emotional vulnerability.

FEELING AFRAID AS IF SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN unfolds at a breakneck pace and often blurs storytelling, standup, and theatre in an hilariously heartfelt blend. At its core, the show asks what it means to share and be known while deploying incredible humor that could strip the paint off of the walls. Serving as The Comedian’s disarming defense mechanism, it is the humor that clarifies the fear, vulnerability, and intimacy The Comedian grapples with.

Ultimately, FEELING AFRAID AS IF SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN is less about telling a story of a man finding romance and more about accepting the necessary fear in being seen. The production recognizes that vulnerability and fear go hand-in-hand, but suggests that actual connection is impossible without both.

While there absolutely is a time and place for grand adventures, sometimes, as is the case in FEELING AFRAID AS IF SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS GOING TO HAPPEN, the most stirring performances share stories of one person's life quietly but immeasurably changed. 

Photo Credit: DJ Corey Photography. Steven Webb as The Comedian.

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