Jes Tom sets up a joke at the one-person show Less Lonely at the Greenwich House Theater.
Toward the beginning of the new solo show Less Lonely, writer and star Jes Tom explains:
Usually when I do comedy, I come out on stage, I do a bit that goes “Hi. I’m Jes, my pronouns are they/them, I like when people call me ‘they,’ it makes me feel less lonely. Like someone can be like, ‘That’s Jes, they’re gonna go smoke a spliff,’ and it sounds like I had a friend.”
As the show goes on, it becomes clear that Tom wants to be loved. It also occurs to Tom to love somebody else.
Tom talks about gender identity in Less Lonely. Photographs by Samantha Brooks.
The subjects touched on in the show are multiple and wide-ranging. From gender transition to apocalypse to adult films, Tom discusses it all. Tom’s pronouns fluctuate between anecdotes. During one story about their grandmother, Tom says, “I was her first granddaughter. And that’s okay with me, that was our relationship.” Elsewhere, Tom describes themselves as someone’s “boyfriend.” Born female, Tom initially identified as male but now chooses nonbinary. An attraction to women has also waned over time in favor of an attraction to men; at the intersection between so many different identities, Tom spends a significant amount of time seeking definition as an individual.
At the performance I saw, Tom began the show with a gruff demand for a couple of audience members to take their coats off the stage. This set the tone for the rest—Tom is in control, and not necessarily due to the strength of the material. There’s no need for Tom to recover from a missed joke, because the audience has to be on Tom’s side.
The language Tom uses is direct and obscene. One who enjoys today’s Tumblr brand of chronically-online ribaldry might not be bothered by it; others might find it difficult to appreciate. Much of the humor is provincial; it doesn’t land outside its niche audience. That’s not to say that the jokes don’t land—at least one bit captured the extraordinary feeling of a comic putting into words a listener’s exact thoughts. But while Tom does well with a bawdy observational style and is adept at playing to the crowd, the minutiae of the contemporary LGBT community reigns second only to one thing. When the show attempts to coalesce into something more, it starts to falter.
What is paramount in Less Lonely and what exactly defines Jes Tom’s character is best described by their lack of a journey, which starts and ends with yearning to be accepted. At one point during the play, the performer says:
I’ve always been obsessed with the end of the world. ... Maybe because I'm at the intersection of trans person and comedian so death looms near. ... Everyone runs out of their homes ripping off their clothes confessing their love for the final time, consummating their love in the streets! … Because if you are in love at the end of the world you get to have that high stakes, hand against the window, fogged up glass, Titanic sex.
Tom works the crowd.
Toward the end, it seems like Tom may have realized that the “the way [one] dies”—whether alone or not—pales in comparison to “the ways [one is] gonna live.”
This whole time I’ve had this narrative about being afraid to die alone, but I didn’t really know what I was talking about. ... [My grandma] threw herself into her life, threw herself into her family, and in the end she wasn’t alone. We were there with her. And I realized I’ve been so obsessed thinking about the ways that I’ll die at the end of the world, when really I should be thinking about the ways I’m gonna live with the time I have.
Yet, instead of looking forward to finding someone else, Tom ends the show with another fantasy about being found: “I just want someone to … find my body and go, ‘Oh no, I loved them.’ And then it sounds like someone was there with me anyways.”
As a comedy show, it’s fine. As a portrait of a person perpetually in want, it’s haunting.
Jes Tom’s Less Lonely runs through Jan. 6 at the Greenwich House Theater (27 Barrow Street). Performances are at 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and at 5:30 and 8 p.m. on Saturdays. For tickets and more information, visit jestomshow.com.
Playwright: Jes Tom
Director: Em Weinstein
Set: Claire Deliso
Lighting: Jennifer Fok
