There is something wonderfully disconcerting about watching Kristina Libby tell the story of her life while behaving like the slightly neurotic character who might, in another universe, be narrating somebody else’s.
That is part of the genius of “I Almost Died for This?! (A Love Story. Sort of)”. This is deeply personal storytelling, yet Libby never presents herself as the tragic heroine of her own life. Instead, she gives us a version of herself who is funny, self-deprecating, occasionally exasperated and apparently capable of finding an anecdote in almost anything. She goes to Brooklyn while her fate goes to Long Island. She moves in one direction – downwardly mobile, while the love of her life is upward – and heading … back to his wife.
Woven into that age old story are some extraordinary anecdotes. There is kite surfing in Seattle, a meeting with fate at the baggage reclaim in New Orleans airport, and the revelation — which I was today years old when I learned — that The Big Easy apparently smells of socks.
There is also Libby’s teenage desire to put her entire high-school class into a blender. I have two things to say about this. Firstly, I relate to the ambition. Secondly, I would quite like to know where she found a blender that big. These are the laughs, thrown in and thrown away, that catch the audience off guard – like a gentle, playful slap that snaps you back into attention.
Beneath the laughs, though, is a much darker story. Kristina Libby takes us through abusive relationships, therapy, love, loss and a brain injury that may be the direct or indirect responsibility of one of those relationships. There is a grim irony in the fact that, after a succession of damaging partners, therapy can seem like the least-worst outcome available.
The ultimate “good girl” conundrum arrives when the soulmate turns out to be a married man. Libby’s story repeatedly challenges the idea that if we simply behave ourselves, make sensible choices and follow the rules, life will reward us accordingly. It won’t, of course. What it might do, however, is give us a story worth telling.
Libby is a natural storyteller. She moves effortlessly between exposition, observation and punchline, leaving me wondering whether “exposition storytelling” is a recognised genre — or merely one to which I am new. Either way, I was thoroughly entertained.
I Almost Died for This?! is funny, uncomfortable, moving and surprisingly uplifting. Most importantly, it never feels like a performance designed to make us feel sorry for its protagonist. Libby has survived her story. Now she gets to make us laugh about it. Highly recommended. A sixth star missing? Only because we all wanted to hear more.
