Trying Times

The idea of this limited series was simple...each episode was built around an everyday stressful situation (meeting your current lover's ex, getting a job, visiting your lover's parents, taking your driver's test, moving house) and build an absurd story around them. Have them written by smart writers (including veteran TV comedy writers and a number of top playwrights like Wendy Wasserstein, Terence McNally, and Christopher Durang) and acted by some big names in show biz, like Spalding Gray, Stephen Wright, Teri Garr, Swoosie Kurtz, Rosanna Arquette, Stockard Channing, Carrie Fisher, and Candice Bergen in her pre-Murphy Brown days, proving she really could do comedy. (And how did they afford all these folks anyway?). And you have gold.

This show was a rarity; I was lucky to come across it late at night on my local PBS station, but I was roaring with laughter. I know I missed some episodes, but the ones I saw are cherished memories after all these years.

It was almost therapeutic; at the time I was coping with my own trying times and being able to laugh at the situations here made it easy for me to cope. I wish it would be released on DVD, or rerun; smart, well-acted comedy like this would be a breath of fresh air today. Or at least resurrect the concept with some edgy new writers and directors.

Even as a High School student I knew this series was something special. I have no idea how many episodes they ran. The three (perhaps 4) I managed to catch featured, 1. Spaulding Gray, 2. Rosanna Arquette & David Byrne, 3. Steven Wright.

I would love to own these on DVD. Smart, funny, ironic, biting...as if Kurt Vonnegutt had written a TV show!

They ran on the local PBS station and as a result never had a regular time spot. I've tried searching for more information on the program but have turned up very little.

I'll try to write a few more details in regard to the individual episodes soon.

It's sort of a cross between "Seinfeld" and ""Annie Hall." Like "Seinfeld" (which debuted the same year), it places characters in crazy social situations, while like "Annie Hall," it uses the device of having the characters deliver monologs to the camera.

Really, though, you don't need any description of what happens on the show to be interested in it. You need only to look at a list of all the many talents involved.

Christopher Durang's contribution to this anthology series, 'Wanda's Visit' is a comic gem that really should be more widely seen. I taped it in its original run and virtually everyone I've shown it to screams with laughter. It really is hysterically funny. Swoosie Kurtz gives a wonderful performance as the ex-girlfriend from hell. Durang himself appears in a small cameo. Julie Haggarty and Jeff Daniels are equally strong. Although Durang subsequently adapted it for the stage, the original is a masterpiece of comic writing and acting. I really don't remember and didn't tape any of the other segments, but from the people involved and the descriptions, it seems like this would be a winner. Whoever owns the rights (PBS?) really should dig through the vaults and release this.

Here's another television series that cries out for home-video rediscovery, or at least revival by public-broadcasting syndicates or Comedy Central, but instead languishes in obscurity. The standard of writing, performance and production on this anthology was very high, indeed, and it's a pity that the PBS network of stations weren't more supportive (of this production of LA's KCET), or didn't properly get the word out (perhaps it was feared that this was too much like commercial television offerings...although it handily outclassed most situation comedy on the other US networks, with even its weakest episodes worth the viewing). The Spalding Gray episode would seem particularly poignant as well as funny today, after his suicide; Catherine O'Hara, Steven Wright, and Teri Garr's episodes were all highlights.