Gary Levine wants to make you laugh.
“I woke up the other morning and Sue was sitting on the side of the bed, staring at me,” he says as he, his wife Susan Htoo, and I sit down in their Pinehills apartment with a pitcher of Cape Codders. “I said, ‘Good morning, what did I do now?’ She told me she had a dream, and in the dream she died. And I didn’t grieve long enough. I saw she was upset. So, I said, ‘Look, I’ve been grieving since the day we got married, isn’t that long enough?’”
Gary, 70, and Sue, both retired attorneys, moved to Plymouth last summer from their hometown of Poughkeepsie, NY, to be closer to their son Daniel, daughter-in-law Katie, and two grandchildren, Hudson, 5, and Sawyer, 2, who live in Needham.
“They actually asked us to move closer,” says Gary, disbelief and bemusement registering on his expressive face. Along with their furniture, clothing, and artwork, Gary brought his passion for stand-up comedy to Plymouth. He’s been performing locally for the past several months at open mic nights from Kingston (“in the back room of a back room” of the Royal Garden Chinese restaurant) to the House of Hatchets in Hyannis, and other venues in between.
“When I was in my early 60s, I was bored with work and life and needed a change,” says Gary. “Sue knows I love comedy and about nine years ago she found a seven-day course in comedy writing and performing offered by the American Institute of Comedy in New York City and gave it to me as holiday gift. It all culminated in doing a five-minute set at the Gotham Comedy Club in Manhattan.”
“Gary was speechless,” Sue says of Gary’s reaction to the gift. “He didn’t think he could write jokes and get up on stage.”
“Sometimes before a judge, or when meeting with clients, I would crack a joke, but that’s not nearly the same as doing stand-up,” Gary offers.
So, Gary and Sue rented a hotel room in New York City and Gary’s stand-up career began. The course included coaching by a professional comedy writer, writing and rewriting jokes, testing them out before others in the class, and rewriting again and again.
“Poor Sue,” says Gary. “She typed all of my stuff over and over, listened to me practice my delivery, and helped me write. All my jokes are spouse approved.”
On the big night, about 175 people were at the Gotham Comedy Club for Gary’s “graduation” performance.
“A lot of my friends came,” he says. “I was pacing back and forth like a caged animal. But once I got a couple of laughs the nervousness disappeared, and after that it was like heroin. I was addicted.”
Over the next few years, Gary often traveled to New York City and around the Hudson Valley for open mic nights and a few paid gigs. He also took more comedy classes as he continued to work on his delivery and hone his timing, often at home with Sue as his audience.
“We write together, and I listen to him polish his routine,” Sue says. “But I don’t go to all his shows.”
Gary and Sue see this adventure as a collaborative effort.
“We exchange ideas and bodily fluids,” says Gary who glances at Sue to see if the joke has landed with her. She smiles a wan smile that suggests she’s heard that one many times before.
Gary’s stand-up is informed by his early comedy heroes such as Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, George Burns and Gracie Allen (“their timing was amazing,” says Gary), Soupy Sales, and perhaps most of all, Woody Allen.
“During the comedy course, the teacher kept saying, ‘Stop sounding like Woody Allen. Find your own style,’” Gary says.
On a recent open mic night at O’playsis Collaborative Arts Studio and Music Lounge in Buzzards Bay, in front of a modest crowd of about 30 – including the performers – Gary is the ninth of 14 comics doing five minutes apiece. Most are younger men and the lion’s share of the jokes are crudely sexual or about drugs. Not all of Gary’s jokes are suitable for this website, but he’s clearly a cut above the rest. The crowd reaction, mostly a few chuckles here and there until Gary takes the stage, is testimony to that.
Gary is always the oldest comedian by decades at the open mics, and of late the only one who uses crutches pending hip replacement surgery, something he plays for laughs right out of the gate.
“I know, I look like a poster boy for the Shriners,” he says to the first hearty laughs of the night, and then makes a plea for donations, promising anyone who gives him $19.95 “an adorable copy of his hip x-ray” and for a recurring monthly pledge of the same amount, they can have his old hip once it comes out.
Gary’s routines are often reminiscent of the comedy familiar to Jewish New Yorkers who patronized the Borscht Belt resorts of the Catskills during their mid-20th century heyday. Comics such as Allen, Jackie Mason, Henny Youngman, Mort Sahl, and Buddy Hackett were regular headliners. I’m not surprised when Gary says that when he was 16, he worked as a busboy at one of the venerable resorts, The Granit. The ethos of the place rubbed off on him.
But Gary’s biggest comedy influences were his late Brooklyn-born parents, Murray and Esther.
“My father emceed at various shows in the city where humor was required, but I never saw him perform,” says Gary. “But in a roomful of people he was lights-out funny. He was big and loud and would take over the room. My mother was hysterical, cutting, and snide, usually at my Dad’s expense.” Then comes the punchline: “They weren’t perfect, they were Jewish!”
“When I took up comedy, my mother told me, ‘If you’re having fun, do comedy.’ I said, ‘You couldn’t have told me this 40 years ago?’ And my mother replied, ‘You didn’t ask.’”
Like everyone with the chutzpah to get on a stage and try to make people laugh, Gary sometimes bombs, but it rolls off his back. He knows he’s funny and has confidence in the material. Still, there are nights when the comic chemistry between performer and audience is missing. “Part of being a really good comic is finding a hook with an audience,” Gary says. “Sometimes you just can’t find the hook.”
“So many of the open mic people are doing it because they aspire to be professional comedians,” he adds. “I’m not under pressure because I have less at stake. I’m just doing it because I like it and I like listening to a younger generation talk about their lives through comedy, their trials and tribulations. It’s their therapy.”
Gary and Sue live in The Rowen, the newest of the Pinehills apartment buildings, and there’s always a cadre of residents who attend Gary’s local gigs to cheer, or laugh, him on.
“Gary and Sue are a great comedy team,” says Margi Goett, a neighbor. “The material is belly-laugh great, and Gary’s delivery is fantastic. I loved it!”
“When I have an audience, I connect with and I hear people laughing there’s nothing better,” says Gary. Then he shoots Sue a look and smiles wryly. “Except being with my wife, of course.”
Peter Zheutlin – a freelance journalist who has written frequently for The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, and many other publications – brings the perspective of a Plymouth newcomer to the Independent. He is the author or co-author of nine books, including the New York Times bestseller “Rescue Road: One Man, Thirty Thousand Dogs, and a Million Miles on the Last Hope Highway.” Zheutlin can be reached at pzheutlin@gmail.com.