Mixing laughs with mental illness
Maria Bamford mines her own experiences for ‘Lady Dynamite’
Psychiatric units are no laughing matter.
Take it from stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, who mines her struggles with mental illness for meta-sitcom Lady Dynamite, streaming on Netflix Friday.
After battling depression and anxiety for decades, she suffered a real-life nervous breakdown in 2011 and was diagnosed with bipolar II disorder. She sought treatment at inpatient facilities, which “are very funny in retrospect, but not while you’re in them,” says Bamford, 45. “It is funny how depressing some of them are. If there’s a chair, it has to be broken; if there’s a puzzle, it’s half a puzzle; all the magazines have to be water-damaged. It’s like, ‘Wow, I was depressed before I came here, but now — whole new level!’ ”
A psychiatric hospital in her native Duluth, Minn., is one of many places that Bamford visits in Lady Dynamite (ironically named for her lack of energy). Jumping between the past and present — with scores of bizarre fantasy sequences between — the semi-autobiographical series tracks her attempts to ease back into comedy, landing mostly questionable gigs (a NSFW Japanese noodle commercial, an inadvertently racist sitcom) at the behest of her manager (Fred Melamed).
The series was co-created by Pam Brady ( South Park) and Mitch Hurwitz, who cast Bamford in Arrested Development and approached her about doing a project loosely inspired by her experiences. Although she didn’t write for Dynamite, she would occasionally pop in to writers’ rooms and offer details from her life, many of which are sent up in early episodes (including her nasally character in a series of Target commercials, and a community bench she installed outside her house).
“I’m interested in building community in my neighborhood, but it’s funny, I’ve had a much more positive experience with my bench in real life than in the show,” Bamford says. “No one’s destroyed it.”
Dynamite also follows Bamford outside of work, as she strikes up a friendship with an assertive Hollywood agent (Ana Gasteyer) and unsuccessfully tries to date a bisexual meth-head (Josh Casaubon). Surrounded by other offbeat characters played by Patton Oswalt, Bridget Everett and Lennon Parham, “I feel like I’m more of a straight man,” Bamford says. Unlike her onscreen counterpart, “I’m definitely more shy. I don’t spend as much time with people as I do on the show.”
Bamford’s 12-episode foray will mark many viewers’ introduction to her hyperactive brand of comedy, but this isn’t the first time she’s used it to talk about her struggles. In a 2012 special, The
Special Special Special, she performed a stand-up routine about her breakdown in the comfort of her parents’ living room. In January, she brought her act to The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, who called her his “favorite co- median on planet Earth.” With other shows such as BoJack Horseman, You’re the Worst and My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend confronting mental illness, Bamford feels there’s less stigma surrounding it. “There’s more acceptance and it’s great,” she says. “I can’t wait until it becomes a hack premise, like, ‘Oh, we’ve heard that before!’ ”
“I can’t wait until (mental illness) becomes a hack premise, like, ‘Oh, we’ve heard that before!’ ”