BY LUCIA MAURO
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Susan Messing orders ham off the bone and unbuttered toast at the Lincoln Restaurant–a quick power boost before heading over to the health club for an intense afternoon workout. "When you’re wearing a dress cut on the bias," she insists, "you have no choice. You’ve got to spend time working on those hips."
The improviser-comedienne-teacher, who has performed on The Second City mainstage and is a founding member of the Annoyance Theatre, is not talking about her latest acting gig. She’s referring to her upcoming wedding. Messing and fellow comedic actor Joe Canale (a member of The Second City’s national touring company) will tie the knot April 22 in New York City. She’s going for a 1930s Jean Harlow look, noting "I connect to that era–somewhere between the Depression and Rosie the Riveter."
But these all-consuming nuptials, which include separate parties in Chicago and Los Angeles, are beginning to take their toll on this characteristically uninhibited artist known for celebrating the ridiculousness of life on stage.
"I haven’t found the humor as fast as I could in my wedding plans," says Messing, 37. "I just never saw myself walking down the aisle. I’m used to being a princess on stage. My wedding is the one day I don’t want to be on stage."
Her frustration at the moment has to do with place settings and the typeface on invitations and pleasing various family members–not the institution of marriage. And despite her anxiety over that dress "cut on the bias," Messing manages to joke about her absurd experiences at Kleinfeld’s, a mega bridal-gown warehouse in Brooklyn where her alterations kept coming back wrong; or calling her latest directing project "Wedding Tour 2001." She also learned that the rabbi presiding over the ceremony is a producer. He asked her to bring along a headshot and resume.
She beams when talking about how she met Canale in the ImprovOlympic’s green room (she lent him her cigarette lighter), and how he proposed at the Aspen Comedy Festival. "So, for the rest of our lives, I can say that Joe asked me to marry him at the Aspen Comedy Festival." And one detects a slight welling up of tears when she says that her 97-year-old grandfather is walking her down the aisle. Suddenly, she stops fretting and makes a conscious effort to not crease her forehead.
"Our life is improv," Messing announces. "When you improvise, you can’t take life too seriously."
She received her degree in theatre from Northwestern University, but pursued improv because she didn’t like memorizing lines, adding "I can make up shit, and it sounds better." But Messing also was attracted to the "uncensored" appeal of improv and its promotion of teamwork.
"I didn’t want to be on my own," she continues. "I wanted to play with others. Improv is about getting over fear. If you don’t give up, there will be an opportunity for you. In improv, half is talent; the other half is cooperation."
Ask Messing about her earliest attraction to comedy, and she cites–besides the fact that she’s "a Jew from Jersey"–that her father was the funniest man on the planet and that, since childhood, she was a huge fan of Lucille Ball. She tells a story about how, as a child, she took 40 baby aspirins and was bummed out about missing "I Love Lucy" because her mom had to give her medicine to induce vomiting.
"I was the kind of child who always wanted to make her mark," she states with a smirk. "I was a creative child, i.e. an annoying child. I think things are funny that other people think are not; and when people say that something is verboten, I want to explore it–not necessarily the dark side, just not the norm. From there, the comedy emerges. I talk a fuckin’ hell of a lot, but I observe more."
Messing unexpectedly segues into her early career aspirations: "I wanted to be a hockey goalie, a swimming coach or an actress." Then she describes herself as "one big fragment," with "the attention span of a gnat." Unprovoked, she grabs her little plastic bag with a flying bird hologram, moves it up and down, and begins singing, "I like birds, I like birds, I like birds" for at least three minutes.
Of course, with Messing, it’s tricky to determine when the jokes begin and end. But it’s clear that she is a wry and "uncensored" observer of life and the art of improvisation.
"I stayed in Chicago to be an improviser," says Messing, "not to get into Second City. My idea of success is doing what you want to be doing with people you want to work with."
After graduating from Northwestern in 1986, she studied and performed at the ImprovOlympic, where she created the Level 3 curriculum and continues to teach. In 1989, she helped found Annoyance Theatre, where she wrote, directed and starred in hits like Co-Ed Prison Sluts, That Darn Anti-Christ, The Real Live Brady Bunch and the famed Judy Blume adaptation, What Every Girl Should Know. From 1998 to 2000, Messing co-wrote and performed in The Second City mainstage revues, Second City 4.0 and The Psychopath Not Taken; and taught a story theatre workshop there. She also has an impressive list of voiceovers, commercials and films.
Most recently, Messing appeared in The Vagina Monologues at the Apollo Theatre. Besides "Wedding Tour 2001," she continues to direct The Second City’s national touring company and will direct The Dana & Julia Show at the Chicago Improv Festival.
"I look at my path," she says, "and, in improv, it’s like someone asks you to take a look at a show they’re working on, and you become a coach. That leads to directing opportunities; then you have a chance to write and teach. I get paid to play and to teach other people how to play."
The two key driving forces behind Messing’s classes are "you are only limited by your lack of imagination and fear of feeling stupid." She considers Annoyance Theatre’s artistic director Mick Napier her "absolute mentor."
Messing specifies, "Mick cuts through the shit. He has no time for your arguments. He has no time for your bullshit. He expects the best. His job is to pull out the best in you. And he’s always growing–which is what every artist should be doing."
On this note, she has no patience for improvisers who bicker or complain or whine about being victims.
"I don’t like improvisers who telegraph 'I suck,’" says Messing, "or improvisers who telegraph 'you suck.’"
"I’m drawn to improvisers who are expressing something important or something that brings them joy, or working something out, or fuckin’ around–but joyously. You have to celebrate your time on stage. Look to see how you could be a leader and a follower at the same time."
Other snippets of advice include: "If you’re trying to be funny, you’ll be trying to watch; if it’s not fun, you shouldn’t be doing this; hell is a choice; a sense of entitlement will fuck you up in improv; you earn respect and privileges; and if I can improvise, anybody can."
She approaches improv from a sociological standpoint and believes that scenes are about people–the plot is taken care of. Messing, who has learned life lessons from the ways she has behaved behind the scenes, encourages improvisers to be conscious of their reputations since word travels fast. She adds, "Actors have to have good table manners; they have to be kind to each other."
When she is teaching or performing at a highly structured institution, like The Second City, Messing honors their needs.
Throughout our conversation, she reflects on ways improv has influenced various aspects of her life. For Messing, it has helped her get along with people; taught her not to beat herself up; prompted her to celebrate people who are different than her "by trying them on" and exploring them; and allowed her to develop more empathy for the human condition.
In 1998, Messing adapted and directed one of the Annoyance’s most moving satires on adolescence, What Every Girl Should Know, based on Judy Blume’s books. The theatre community is familiar with the controversy surrounding the show when Blume threatened to sue the Annoyance for not obtaining rights to her books. But after Messing invited Blume to see the production, and the "rock star" author approved and realized the theatre wasn’t making any money off the show, Blume dropped the lawsuit and gave the okay to extend. Messing and Blume have since become friends.
Then Messing has to wipe away a few tears as she talks about what this show meant to her. "My mom handed me a copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" when I was about 12," she explains. "I was not interested in masturbating with a cucumber, but I was dealing with issues involving my period. Judy Blume solved that for me. She knows how to speak to a specific age group.
"What Every Girl Should Know hit the core of your insecurities. In my program notes, I wrote, 'Puberty is the great equalizer.’"
As she dons a pair of oval neon-blue glasses and a goofy knit caps with strings, Messing cuts to the core of improv.
"My question always is, 'Did you laugh?,’" she says. "When people talk about the sociopolitical ramifications of Co-Ed Prison Sluts, I want to vomit. Improv isn’t brain surgery. After all, Shakespeare and Chekhov were just expressing themselves. They didn’t think they were so great when they were writing.
"So many improvisers think they’re re-inventing the wheel. I don’t buy it. Improvisers tend to be highly self-aware because Chicago is the center of the improv universe. I’m not interested in being around people who drive me crazy. I have enough craziness in my life."
Like the harried "Wedding Tour 2001" and that infamous dress cut on the bias.