THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 28, 1994 TAG: 9411250383
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
BRETT LEAKE, a 35-year-old comic from Maidens near Goochland in central Virginia, has muscular dystrophy, but he doesn't dwell on it on ``Look Who's Laughing,'' a special to be aired by PBS and WHRO tonight at 10.
Leake, whose career in stand-up comedy is moving along nicely after four appearances on ``The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,'' doesn't preach or lecture or talk much about the disease that has crippled him.
That sets him apart from five other comics who appear on ``Look Who's Laughing,'' produced in Hollywood by R.J.Johsnon. They use their stand-up routines as therapy. Between laughs, they instruct audiences in comedy clubs about what it's like to live in a wheelchair or to be blind or deaf.
Geri Jewell, who has cerebral palsy, says, ``I feel a responsibility to not only get laughs but also to educate my audiences.''
Same story from the hearing-impaired Kathy Buckley.
She also talks about teaching the customers in the clubs about the frustrations of the handicapped.
Leake says he is an entertainer, period.
``I bring no object lesson or underlying message to my act,'' he says. ``I don't try to educate the people in the audience about muscular dystrophy, because I don't have the skill to do that. I'll tell a joke or two about the MD and move on.''
Leake asks his audiences, ``Why do I look like this, do you suppose?''
``It's the curse of breaking a link in a chain letter.''
After that, Leake plunges into material that has nothing to do with the wasting away of muscles or anything else as serious. His specialty is what he calls ``found humor.''
You've heard others do it. Seinfeld. Carlin. Wright.
``I'm using their scraps,'' Leake says.
Leake on stage wonders . . . how come after you put French bread in a toaster, you don't get French toast . . . how come some cheese takes eight years to age but spoils in two weeks in your refrigerator . . . why the wrong numbers you dial are never busy?
It takes only a moment or two for audiences to forget about the MD in Leake's life, settle in and appreciate his material. He is a polished comic who makes 300 appearances a year at comedy clubs in 12 states. His Honda Accord has 300,000 miles on it.
On the road, he has opened for Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, Paula Poundstone, Rita Rudner and Kevin Meany. He's been on every brick-wall-in-the-background show for comics on cable. You've seen him on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon and ``Entertainment Tonight.''
Leake has overcome physical hardship to succeed in one of the most competitive fields in the crushingly competitive world of show business. That is enough for Leake. No need to hit you over the head with the fact he has MD.
Seinfeld doesn't say that Leake is funny for a guy with MD.
``He's funny, period,'' Seinfeld told ``Entertainment Tonight.''
On the PBS special, J.D. England in his wheelchair says he feels compelled to put a message in his comedy, to give audiences a lesson in living with a handicap. Alex Valdez, who is blind, says he uses his routine to bring people into his world of darkness.
There are his snappy one-liners: ``I'm just an everyday guy who can't drive too good. . . .''
Then there is his message: ``Some of my colleagues in stand-up complain that I'm getting breaks just because I'm blind.''
You'll hear no such evangelizing from Leake. It's hell to have MD or MS or CP or to be a paraplegic, and the whole world knows it.
Now let's forget that stuff and have some laughs, he says.
``Your parents are forever telling you to act your age. But how can you? You have no experience. You've never been this age before.'' Rimshot, please. by CNB