In Memoriam

An unexpected axiom about performing improv is that the more you do it, the less you remember. People in the audience would ask me the following day about specific scenes from a show, and all I’d have to offer is vibes and questions. Like, ‘yeah, that was cool’, and, ‘remind me what happened?’ 

It could be that my brain deteriorated at a faster rate over the last seven years. A combination of videogames, parenting, and depression could create the same effect. But I doubt it. When you’re inventing art on the fly with the same three friends for seven years, you don’t stress the details. Details are for routines. There is no routine to perfect in improv. You get on the stage, explore the magic, and ride the laughter.

HAZMAT Love had no business lasting as long as we did. Forming an improv team solely because you studied in class together is mad lunacy. The four of us who stuck with it did so more out of inertia than compatibility. A HAZMAT two-person scene was a balancing act of comedic incongruencies. Add any more of us, and the stage became a powder keg of mismatched energies. We made it work.

On one end of the strange spectrum was Aaron—verbose, constantly bantering, always ready to throw you a homerun ball; then me, often manic, sometimes listening, pushing the envelope; and Christopher, lighting the envelope afire, following the fun to the Nth degree. And Phil Brady—quiet, almost silent, with the physicality and expressiveness of a vaudeville master, and the driest punch lines when he decided it was finally time to speak. We found our special, weird dynamic together; if one of us was absent from a show, the chemistry busted. We made it work for seven years.

Shortly before the pandemic hit, HAZMAT would have performed one last show, except Aaron attempted suicide the night before. While the other teams were onstage, I was waiting by Aaron’s bedside for him to come out of a coma. He’s better now, though living in Texas. Once he moves back to Syracuse, our team might have gotten back together for a celebratory show. Except Phil Brady just died of COVID.

One of the unspoken flaws in our improv community (and probably in many others) is the superficiality of our relationships. If anyone accuses you, an improviser, with the old ‘improv is a cult’ schtick, you may at least argue back that we are poor cultists, because a good cultist would know their fellow heathen deeply. How remarkable, to watch jaded adults find a creative home in an art form that spurns individualism, then leave the relationships almost entirely on stage. 

It took me around five years to have a real conversation with Phil Brady about his depression. This is a man who I hung out with behind the scenes almost monthly, at practice and at shows. Once, we went to the movies together. I drove Aaron through a monster snowstorm—we had to do a K-turn on the thruway, the visibility and conditions were so bad—yet Phil still met up with us, even though it was THE FORCE AWAKENS, which he had already seen. By around the second Act, Phil was asleep. We didn’t try to wake him. Phil had diabetes, and he wrestled with his health for as long as I knew him. Over the last year, he was making exciting progress with diet and exercise.

Early on in the team, Phil and the rest of the guys would come over to my house for practice. There was barely enough room downstairs. We sat around in a circle, passing around my infant daughter. I do remember one scene, when the typically reserved Phil broke out a Paula Deen character, full of bluster and butter. No one got to see that, except us. We laughed until we cried.

In our improv group, we had summer picnics, and I always tried to get a little one-on-one time with Phil. Usually that meant finding a quiet spot on the side. We would talk for maybe five minutes, about the latest show, and the community theater he was working on. As loyal as Phil Brady was to our team, it was a small slice of his dedication to the local theater. He gave hours to CNY Playhouse, sometimes as an actor, and many times on crew, serving graciously. In confidence, he told me he preferred short form improv over long form, and I didn’t hold it against him. We didn’t even talk very long about movies, because Phil wasn’t the kind of guy who found his opinion very interesting or worth bloviating about for hours.

It took me five years to finally have a real conversation with Phil about his depression, even though I’d been vocal about my experiences with bipolar, even though he’d been suffering on and off for decades, even though we’d hung out and performed together dozens of times. He was in pain, and I didn’t have a great answer at the time, but I knew that was okay. I knew it was good enough to listen, to be a friend, and that we’d shared in our trial together—that we could reconnect and cross that bridge together again. And we did. Most times I saw him again in person, I’d ask how he was doing, and we shared our hope, then, too.

Death is so goddamned cruel. 

I don’t need my memories. The memories are blurry and insufficient. Scenes stuck in a fog.

I want to be on stage with Phil now. I want his eyebrow arched uproariously. I want his cheeks blasting out from feigned exhaustion. I want his fey hand shooing away my latest absurdity. I want him hunched over, skeptical, ready and waiting to fire off a scene-shattering one-liner. I want him quiet at the picnic. I want his detached sigh. I want his latest obscure musical obsession. I want to earn his wry chuckle. I want him to confide in me; I want to console him. I want new memories, again, and again, and again.

I haven’t talked to Phil in almost a year, and now he’s dead.

Improv is no cult. Real religion is meant to transform the heart, and how we treat one another. There’s nothing transformative about improv. Improv is a cycle. We ride the laughter, and then the ride ends.

Before this pandemic is over, and the improvisers shuffle back onstage, I have one request. Call your Phil Brady. Tonight. This minute. Close this page, don’t leave a comment. Call them. Say hello. Say you missed them. Recall a favorite memory; if you don’t remember some of the details, trust in their ‘Yes, And’ to fill in the rest. Confide in them like you’ve never done before. Make a promise to visit together again. Mark a date on the calendar.

Rest in peace, my brother. I love you.