I love Rachel Bloom.

If you don’t know who she is, you should. Rachel Bloom is a writer/singer/actor best known for co-creating and starring in the musical TV show “Crazy Ex Girlfriend.” I think this show is criminally underrated.

When I heard that Rachel had written and was performing in a one-woman Off-Broadway musical comedy called “Death, Let Me Do My Show,” it became a must-see for me. The show’s Off-Broadway run has since ended, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it enjoys future runs in other cities. Before NYC, some iteration of the show was in London, Chicago and Boston.

Anyway, I have to admit that when I walked out of the theatre, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the show. It wasn’t what I was expecting. Granted, I’m not sure what I was expecting. The show had some cruder jokes than Rachel’s TV show on the CW (which makes sense – it’s the CW). My friend Audrey came to the show with me (hi Audrey!), even though she wasn’t too too familiar with Rachel Bloom. The show starts with Rachel holding a parasol singing a Mary Poppins-esque song about meeting her love under the “cum tree.” I thought, “Oh, God. What have I brought my friend to?”

It was also darker than I thought it’d be, and the juxtaposition of the dark and the crude felt jarring.

The thing is, though, this show has stayed with me. I’ve seen 3 shows since Rachel’s last week, yet I’m still thinking about this one. I think I was a bit distracted by what I thought my friend Audrey would think of the show. I was also distracted by the fangirls in the audience, who tended to laugh so loudly as though everything Rachel said was the funniest thing they’d ever heard (I use “fangirl” in a gender-neutral capacity).

The show opens with a couple of cute jokes about future college admissions essays of COVID-era children, but then Rachel informs us that she will not, definitely not, talk about COVID anymore, and will instead be performing material she had written pre-COVID. Because that’s all behind us now and we’re over it, right? Except it’s a total bait-and-switch.

The show is all about grappling with things you don’t want to and understanding the inevitability and always-present nature of death. The shock-factor jokes in the beginning (though they made my delicate self uncomfortable) serve a functional purpose – to set up the show to say that no, we can’t just ignore the things that have happened, because society will never grow if we don’t acknowledge the past.

Rachel is a really wonderful performer. I know it’s a scripted show, but Rachel sounds like she’s just talking to her audience in a fluid (albeit, perfectly articulate) way. The show is part-musical, part-standup, part- heartfelt monologue, and it was all great, but I particularly loved the moments when Rachel was just earnestly talking to the audience. She’s captivating, she’s funny even when talking about serious issues, and she’s honest. Her show addresses very personal moments in her life – specifically, the two concurrent events of having a baby in the NICU and her writing partner’s dying of COVID, both of which occurred in March 2020.

I also like how Rachel, in classic Jewish fashion, finds the humour in even the darkest of situations. A few jokes I loved (without giving away the punchlines):

• The one about babies in the NICU
• The song about seeing ghosts
• The song that made fun of Dear Evan Hansen (“His name isn’t Dear Evan Hansen, it’s just Evan Hansen…”).

Over the past few days of sitting with this show, I’ve also come to appreciate how it wasn’t what I was expecting. Rachel isn’t the same person she was when she did Crazy Ex Girlfriend (which ended in 2019). Things have happened, she’s changed, so of course her art would change, too. It’s still her voice and her humour, it’s just different. And I think there’s something quite profound about watching someone brilliant’s art evolve over time.

This show has substance. Like Crazy Ex Girlfriend, it’s not for everyone. It was for me, though.

To follow Rachel’s journey and find out about future shows, you can visit her website. You can also watch Crazy Ex Girlfriend on Paramount+ (and I think it’s on Netflix in the US).

Featured image: Rachelbloomshow.com. Artwork by Dave Kloc & Jessica Seamans.