NOVEMBER 1, 2018 // 3
SCRATCHPAD
A WHS grad’s
career in comedy
By ERICK BENGEL
COAST WEEKEND
A
COURTESY RACHAEL O’BRIEN
Comedian Rachael O’Brien, a Warrenton High School graduate, does stand-up.
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comedian, almost by
definition, has had to
overcome hurdles.
“You wouldn’t become a co-
median if you didn’t,” said
Rachael O’Brien, a stand-up
comic from Los Angeles,
invoking the pain-plus-time-
equals-comedy formula that
governs her profession.
O’Brien, 33, who grad-
uated from Warrenton High
School in 2003, performs
Sunday, Nov. 4, at Portland’s
Curious Comedy Theater
and took a moment to chat
with Coast Weekend.
After her monologue,
O’Brien and her friend,
Sabrina Danzl — a fellow
WHS grad who often goes
on the road with her — will
cohost a live episode of
O’Brien’s podcast, “Be Here
For a While.” Some VIP
ticket holders will have a
chance to join them onstage.
Though she studied polit-
ical science at the University
of Oregon, graduating in
three years before moving to
California, O’Brien figured
out early on that political
humor wasn’t her expertise.
“There’s other comedians
that do it so much better that
I don’t want to get into that,”
she said.
Instead, the rising comic
found her voice in dry,
self-deprecating humor
— the deadpan, drawn-
from-life depictions of such
experiences as, say, being a
chubby kid and not realizing
it at the time.
“My parents didn’t tell
THOMAS ROTT PHOTO
Features Editor Erick Bengel.
me,” she said. “It wasn’t
until someone alerted me at
school that I was chubby,
because I thought I was awe-
some.”
“It was my fault,” she
added. “I mean, I ate way
too much.”
Growing up, O’Brien
lived in Astoria and War-
renton, playing sports and
dancing in Maddox Dance
Studio’s Little Ballet The-
atre. At 5, she was an extra
in “Kindergarten Cop” when
it was filmed at her grade
school, Astor Elementary,
but her scene got cut. “They
didn’t know talent,” she
said.
Though not yet a house-
hold name, O’Brien has
performed in lineups with
Judd Apatow and David
Spade (her biggest comedic
influence). Stage fright was
never a problem for her, but
appearing in front of her
idols is its own gauntlet. “I
get more nervous to do well
in front of them than I do
in front of an audience of
people I don’t know,” she
said.
She’s also gone on Unit-
ed Service Organizations
tours for troops overseas, on
military bases in Kosovo,
Germany, Netherlands, Bel-
gium and all over the U.K.
Asked if, as her career
got underway, she had
shows flop, she said, “Oh
yeah. Everyone’s bombed.
Of course.”
Each audience is like a
focus group for the next one
— sometimes the laughter,
or its lack, is in the comic’s
control, sometimes not.
With each successive show,
comedians must do with
their routines what they do
with their lives: take stock
of their shortcomings and
turn that knowledge into a
strength. It’s in that scary
realm of self-awareness that
their art is born.
“No one wants to hear
you tell jokes about all the
wonderful things that are
happening to you all the
time,” O’Brien said.
And, she added, “you
have to have a certain
amount of empathy. You
have to be able to look at
situations and see the dark-
ness in it, but then also the
humor.”
Tickets for O’Brien’s
show can be purchased at
curiouscomedy.org. CW