Actor and comedian Robin Williams touched many lives, including mine, and the first time was the most memorable.
I was a college student in the early 80’s and one of my favorite pastimes was going to comedy clubs where I saw many young comics who have since become household names, like Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres and Jerry Seinfeld.
One night, a friend and I went to see comedian Barry Sobel, a rock star in the San Francisco comedy club scene and we were really looking forward to the show.
The club was a typical one - a bar, small stage and a couple dozen tables with chairs. It had something of a western theme, with a huge wagon wheel leaning against one wall, a saddle hanging on the other and a few tumbleweeds on the floor.
As the house lights went down, an announcer informed us that Sobel would not be performing, due to an emergency. As everyone was still groaning with disappointment, a colorful blur with a thick head of hair suddenly bounded through the tables... grabbed a woman’s coat off the back of her chair... ran up onto the stage and started spewing Mark Antony’s speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar:
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle: I remember the first time ever Caesar put it on;
Lurching back and forth across the stage, clutching the coat around his shoulders like an ermine cape, he recited the entire speech, stopping only once to swipe a waitress’ pen off her tray to reenact Brutus stabbing noble Caesar with his “cursed steel”. After this rapid-fire monologue, he slid into other characters, changing his voice, stance and location-on-the-stage for each, before resuming Antony’s speech. He didn’t even miss a beat when a glass broke in the bar, instead working it into the last line, “Ah HAH! The stones of Rome rise and mutiny!”
The audience howled and just as we were all realizing this wild thespian was Robin Williams, the next round of brilliant, unhinged mayhem ensued. He grabbed the wagon wheel, held it askew on his head and strutted through the crowd like a super model, spitting disparaging comments about “designers these days” and waving an invisible cigarette.
Then he darted over and started caressing the saddle on the wall, saying something about how the life of a cowboy is a lonely one. Then he sat on a gentleman’s lap in the front row, using two tumbleweeds as props for a rather off-color skit about a stripper. His inventiveness was non-stop... side-splitting for more than an hour... delightfully exhausting - and - quintessentially Robin Williams.
Despite all his amazing film and television work since then, for me, that night epitomized his genius more than anything else. Talking faster than most humans can even think, he left us speechless. Now that he’s gone, I am again speechless, and indescribably grateful for the gift of laughter that he gave to so many.
