Help 'em with humor
Comedian and educator Karen Malme '88 finds that comedy is often the best medicine.
Karen "Mal" Malme strides into admitting at Children's Hospital in Boston looking like any other doctor: white lab coat, stethoscope, bulbous red nose and floppy shoes in the vicinity of size 20. Oh, and did I mention the chicken? There's a rubber chicken in her coat pocket.
It doesn't take long for "Dr. Mal Adjusted" and her assistant, Dr. Gracie—aka Nancy Quintin—to diagnose the situation in the waiting room: low energy. The doctors from the CCU—Clown Care Unit—spring into action.
"Has anyone in here seen a doctor?" booms Mal, distracting everyone long enough for Dr. Gracie to make off with a boy's cap. A small group of moms and young girls begins to giggle as Gracie hides behind a large aquarium, wearing the cap and pretending to be a fish. "She's about this tall, red nose, big shoes."
The hide-and-seek continues for several more minutes, during which more clothing is pilfered and returned, a seemingly endless supply of bells and whistles is pulled from pockets, and the giggles erupt into full-blown laughs. The CCU doctors have not only diagnosed the problem, they've cured it. It's a scene that plays out over and over again in wards and waiting rooms all over the hospital, and at times it's difficult to determine who's having more fun—the patients, the parents, the hospital staff or the clowns. "The ricochet effect," Malme explains. "Parents often are so happy to see their kids laugh that they also begin to laugh or cry. It's very emotional."
Malme has built a career on laughter. Multiple careers, really. She is an actor and writer and co-founder of the Boston-based theater group, Queer Soup. She is a performer, entertaining young and old at Children's Hospital as a clown with Big Apple Circus. And she is an educator, using humor to facilitate discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in area schools.
"I guess my core being is a comedic performer," Malme explains. "The teaching has kind of come out of that experience. I enjoy just sharing what I know with people, and I learn so much from them in return."
Comedy wasn't Plan A. Although she frequently performed for friends throughout high school in Hingham, Mass., and in college, Malme says she was "intimidated" by the theater. She performed where she felt comfortable— on the athletic field—and majored in political science. It wasn't until well after graduation that Malme turned to comedy. She was managing a sporting goods store, a job she "loathed," when she thought, "I just don't want to end up being 55 and sitting on the couch watching reruns of 'Three's Company.'" She started going to stand-up clubs around Boston and took a course in stand-up in which she was the only female student.
"It was pretty competitive," she says. "Most of the stand-up clubs at that time were predominantly male and predominantly homophobic and misogynistic and it wasn't really that exciting. Then I took improvisation classes, and that was like, 'Bing! This is what I'm talking about!'"
Malme immediately went to work performing sketch comedy and improv and organizing comedy shows and groups. For several years she performed in Boston and Provincetown with Brian Jewel in the popular "Brian + Mal Show" until 2002, when she co-founded Queer Soup, "a collaboration of queer artists who cultivate new works that introduce, unite, and incite audiences by using laughter to smuggle ideas across society's borders." The troupe has enjoyed public and critical success with productions such as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer's High School Reunion" and "Invasion of Pleasure Valley."
A comic at heart, Malme is also vocal about the very serious work she does in education. She speaks and performs at middle and high schools throughout the region to help students better understand lesbian/gay issues. As with her own experiences growing up, she uses humor to prompt discussion about the feelings of isolation, the stereotypes and the ignorance many kids encounter.
"I have to use my humor to make the world better for the GLBT community and for kids growing up," Malme said. "I have to do something to help kids know that it's OK to be who they are, no matter what that is."
—Jayne M. Iafrate
