Virginia Woolf, or, I don't understand comedy

Kathleen Turner is in L.A. right now, performing in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, after winning awards in London and New York. I took a couple of film classes in college, and in one of them we watched the Elizabeth Taylor film which won her a Best Actress Oscar. So I was excited to see a real actress in town and thought maybe it would be worth going to see. I had heard a radio ad for the play, and the only thing that confused me was that a reviewer referred to the play as "giddy". I just went to the Ahmanson website and read the ads and watched the video clips. The Ahmanson is advertising the play as "a savagely funny event." I was so confused. The movie that I saw was not funny, it was devastating. Maybe I was thinking of a different movie. I went to Netflix and read the reviews of the Elizabeth Taylor film. Nope, same movie. Cruel. Not funny.

I am remembering the play that I wrote about on August 1st. The one that also was advertised as a comedy, but that I interpreted as dark and devastating as well.

This is a normal trend for me. I frequently find myself feeling darkly emotional when others are laughing and cheering. I know that people often present something serious in a sarcastic way. The words sound funny, but the meaning is deadly serious, and so I do not laugh. It doesn't seem right to laugh. I might give a wry smile or something to acknowledge the "joke", but I don't haha laugh because it's not a real joke.

I guess I take things much too seriously or have a tendency to see bleak reality in something fictional. I'm sure when a performer makes one of these sarcastic statements and the reaction from the room is dead silence, that's probably not what they were going for. I guess the laughter is appropriate. But it still doesn't seem right to me.