Comedian proves laughter is the best medicine

In The Kitchen went comic this week with storyteller/performer Alicia Quintano. She led a writing workshop in autobiographical performance situations on Thursday afternoon and later hosted an evening of humor and witticisms at the Cat. Luckily, editor in chief Hanna Miller caught her in between.

HM: You're a comedian here for Eating Disorders Week. Where's the comedy?

AQ: It's not comedy. I don't do one-liners. It would be like a 50 minute one liner. I'm a storyteller.

HM: Do you ever find it hard to get up on stage and tell stories about really personal things?

AQ: After all the years I've been in therapy, I could tell you my deepest, darkest secrets. I don't have any problem talking about food and relationships. I had no problem with that. What I had problems talking about was my family. It was like I was Medusa, like I came out of nowhere. A friend always says it was like I was from the ocean, right? That was the biggest hurdle for me, the family dynamics.

HM: Has your family seen you perform? Have they heard you talk about them on stage?

AQ: Yes, yes they have. My mother's always been very supportive. She's been very good about it. She doesn't want to see it, but I tell them what I'm doing. And my sister always says she can be in the story so long as she's the hero. So we have a deal worked out.

HM: You said you were in therapy. Did you ever use that as a testing ground for new material?

AQ: Wouldn't that be great? My advances in therapy were things where I learned to see myself more realistically instead of having a skewed self-image. But the therapist that helped me the most, she didn't interpret dreams. She wasn't interested. I had great dreams. One time I dreamt she was a midget. She didn't like that at all. She was very grounding. It was a great point in my life when I admitted I wanted to work on this, it wasn't a weakness. It was a positive thing. When I was in New York, when I still lived there, there were eight of us in an apartment, and we all went to the therapist. Maybe it was the time. We all went to Dr. Stevens. We thought of it as a gesture towards authenticity.

HM: Do you ever get on stage and find you just want to make something up?

AQ: I would get a gig at a coffeehouse with open mics, not even open mics, but open to a wide variety of performances, so you'd have mimes and singers and comedians. I'd bring a tape recorder and a music stand and put the tape recorder on the music stand, and improvise. I'd reimprovise the truth. Sometimes you can do a really hot performance and the material can be weak, and the next time you try to do the supposedly fabulous piece, it falls flat.

HM: What's the process? How does a bad relationship become a story?

AQ: Some of the stories I generate because I was at a party and I told the story in a nutshell. Sometimes I do pieces of a story, and I say people love this part. I add perspective, point of view. The story I'm doing tonight really developed. Everytime I told the story, it didn't work. The real reason it didn't work was the woman I'm talking about was so important to me because of what happened before. So I wrote years before her, and that's when the story came to life. It was a real lesson to me. I wrote the ending first. A friend said to me, "You know, I love this story, but I think it needs opening image. I just don't get it." So I started to free associate and suddenly, this image came to my mind of a skeletal figure in a coffeeshop and that was the kick-off.

HM: What advice will you give to students who attend your workshop on autobiographical performance?

AQ: I'll talk to them about variety. I'll read to them from this woman who makes the point once you open your mouth on stage, it's fiction. Once you write about something, you're fictionalizing beacuse you're choosing what to tell and you shape it.

HM: Do you think more people are doing this sort of performance now?

AQ: I think so. I think beacuse the world has become so technical, people really appreciate the ancient art of me talking to you. They did it in the cave. And I think right now we need that. It's a great field of performance. It's a personal art and it's very portable so its easier to get booked.

HM: What kind of reactions do you get to your performance?

AQ: I get a variety of responses. Sometimes from people who are going through tough times. It hits people in very positive ways. There was a woman at a college campus and she was a recovering anorexic and she said it was the first time she ever saw an eating disorder in a positive light. She used the word positive. I use the word hopeful. One time I went to a campus, and I'd been there before, and a woman told me she'd broken up with her boyfriend, and she'd thought of me the whole time. So now all the boys on campus probably hate my guts.

HM: How do you think narrative affects you?

AQ: I've often thought we all live by narrative. We need to look at the narrative we're running in our head. One can change the narrative.

HM: Have you changed your narrative?

AQ: I've attempted to change. I have a new technique I use. If I'm tired and I get negative stuff in my head, I stand up in my room and say "Shut up!" It's about the best thing you can do, except maybe giving yourself a whack on the head. And there's limits to that. Especially if you don't have health insurance.

HM: Okay, thank you very much.