Cancer: The Musical, a Laugh-Jerking Tear-Fest

Montana von Fliss and beakers

"Warning: May not contain actual musical," says the program for Cancer: The Musical, playing at Washington Ensemble Theatre through June 21 (Thurs-Mon). The emotionally unstable--for good reason, her dad died of cancer!--solo show does have a musical element, but the caveat show-goer principle still applies.

You can't possibly be prepared for the range of what you get. Grief and death do not package easily, which is the joke in the title.

Montana von Fliss is the star, appearing before you in a white lab coat and announcing that she's a "scientician" of Loss, which she pronounces with a capital L. If this were a musical, this would be the analytic comedy number. Using an overhead projector gets laughs. So does describing her father's bouts with bipolar disorder, his drug use, his homelessness.

Von Fliss has a sort of pickled-bone rubberiness that's funny because unexpected from this cute blonde who--with her hair bunned up, with glasses--looks an endearingly martial pipsqueak. She's even got a little pocket monogram that says "Montana."

But seriousness sneaks in, and soon enough she's recounting her experiences taking care of her father as he died of cancer. There's no great revelation here, just the strain, awkwardness, and pain of watching someone very dear lose their grip on life. If you're at all prone to crying, bring tissues as a courtesy to those sitting around you. Not so much for the crying alone, as for the inevitable sputtering laugh that may...spray.

At one point she retreats to the back of the stage, to her father's chair--then she pulls up a stool near the front and delivers what could be an outtake from a group therapy session. The songs are an afterword, once her father's dead, and she comes unglued. They're an unstable mixture of earnestly confessional and drily over-the-top lyrics, with occasional beauty.

Von Fliss's performance is strongest when she's in fussy, comedic denial, and when she seems nothing but raw, sad and angry at being robbed of her father. She's directed by John Osebold, who has clearly given her permission for quirkiness, and more importantly, room to challenge the audience's expectations. It's the transitions that feel a little flat. And a few too many banal phrasings, in later going, would indicate that von Fliss feels a little too sure of the gift of your attention.

Deanna Zibello's scenic design combines hospital, faux research lab, and memory closet to great effect, and Monty Taylor's lighting design can feel both industrial and intimately undramatic. The tight spot on von Fliss is not adoring, so much as appraising: grief under the microscope.