Comedy writer's one-man show 'Sorry for Your Loss' finds the humor in grief
GREENWICH VILLAGE, Manhattan -- A comedy writer named Michael Cruz Kayne has found a way to deal with grief through humor and his one-man show.
In "Sorry for Your Loss," the father of two talks truth about how he copes with loss in a way that informs but also entertains.
Kayne is very familiar with the stages of grief after losing a newborn son more than a dozen years ago.
When Kayne's wife Carrie gave birth to twin boys, Truman lived but his brother Fisher died very soon after.
"There were years where I didn't talk about it with anyone, and 10 years after my son died I tweeted about it, and thousands and thousands of people responded to it," Kayne said.
That led him to write the one-man show named after the most common expression of grief - an expression he has heard over and over.
"It becomes this like very surreal, repetitive experience," he said.
In his play, he urges the audience to think beyond such standard expressions and just listen to the person who is grieving.
"For me the responses that were most helpful were people saying things like, 'Oh man, this is the worst thing I've ever heard,' and, just to have someone acknowledge the reality of what's happening for me was very unusual and helped me a lot," Kayne said.
As a professional comedy writer, he also found refuge in laughter and searching for the funny in the midst of so much sadness.
"And I expected people to be terrified and dismayed by it, but in fact, the response has been amazing so I just kept doing it," Kayne said.
"Sorry for Your Loss" is playing now at the Minetta Lane Theater in the Village.
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