Robin Williams

Robin Williams' jarring death has become a shared experience.  His audience has loved him in life and now aches over his departure.

Over 1,000 comments sit aside the NYTimes article announcing his passing, like pallbearers trying to hold him up; trying to switch roles and keep the comedian in a suspended state of love.  He was the morphing face behind the comedy/tragedy mask. 

After my first glimpse of him as an alien introduced on the TV show Happy Days, I was hooked.  Quick, hilarious, facile with language - he was truly from another planet where time vaporized against his wit.

I saw him perform in October, 2009 at Upper Darby's Tower Theatre.  Here is what I recall:  laughing so hard my cheeks ached as did my stomach.  I cannot remember one joke he delivered, but know each was fired machine gun style for 90 minutes.  No intermission.  I wish there had been one so the comedy snippets could settle in somewhere in my overloaded brain instead of skimming off. There was no rest for him or the audience.   He had returned from heart surgery like a rocket.

His tour was titled the "Weapons of Self-Destruction." 

My favorite Robin Williams bit is during his appearance on Inside the Actors Studio when he asks to use an audience member's "little shawl" and proceeds to give four minutes and thirty seconds of manic improv, with shawl in hand, as a Bollywood director, an Irani woman, a rabbi, a contestant on Iron Chef,  a matador, a police officer making an Amish house arrest, and as a car wash soap brush   Here is the YouTube link - the shawl portion begins at the 5:00 mark.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGhfxKUH80M

He made sure comedy did its job in grabbing the laugh and then dropping it for the next laugh.  Old material had no space in his world.  Yet, old demons set up shop and apparently dug in within his life.  Who lifts up those who lift us up?  Jimmy Kimmel's tweet touches this:  "Robin was as sweet a man as he was funny. If you're sad, please tell someone." 

We play roles in our lives.  We typecast ourselves.  But when we get boxed in, do we have a safe exit strategy? I bet each one of us mourning Robin's death would gladly reach for his hand to keep him with us.  Ultimately, though, I believe the first hand to reach out must be our own.

I love to laugh and am sad to feel the end of Robin's humor.  He made sure we craved more.  Thanks, Robin, for your generous gift. 
 
Link to "Weapons of Self Destruction" performance in Washington DC - full concert:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiCxqbT2Ru8