There is no question that Andrew Justvig can write and this version of The Anxiety of Laughing is far superior to the reading he did at The Theater Center in 2025. But despite excellent direction by George D. Nelson and acting by Justvig as Joey, a comic and teacher with cerebral palsy, Olivia Forte as Joey’s wife Leah, Lauria Jones as Michele, Leah’s mother, and Karen Freer’s Lisa Marie, the manager of a comedy club where Joey often does open mic nights, the play still falls short. What Justvig has failed to do is set aside his ego and make Leah the play’s protagonist. Until that happens the show will not work.

The show now begins with Joey giving the eulogy at his mother’s (Stacey’s) funeral. It is very effectively done, but being done without Leah, Michele, and Lisa Marie in attendance makes the scene more manipulative than effective. The three women all had a very good relationship with Joey’s mother, Stacey, and would have been at the funeral despite scheduling conflicts. The attempt to make it seem the Joey is going through everything alone does not fit anywhere into the Venn diagram of these relationships.

The show has wisely moved its setting from Santa Monica to New York where the stakes are higher for both Leah and Joey. Lisa is a ballerina being considered as principal at either the New York City Ballet or the American Ballet Theater and the comedy club is a major player on the New York scene. Michele was a dancer who gave up her career to raise Leah. She seems to still work for the company and found custom made toe shoes in Leah’s cubby that indicated that it was pretty certain that Leah was going to fulfill her dream.

But the small, young family cannot seem to escape problems and tragedy. After the death of Joey’s mother, Joey is “demoted” from theater teacher (parents complaining that they could not understand him) to Physical Education teacher, where he would be a glorified babysitter, and Leah is hit by a car on her way to a meeting with her ballet company. Leah’s injuries are career ending. Justvig needs to clarify what those injuries are. In the original reading, Leah was quadriplegic, which meant she was to too damaged for the balance of the play to make sense. In this production, most of the time Forte plays Leah as paraplegic, which is much more sensible, but Justvig leaves one moment when she is quadriplegic. It is confusing and requires clarification because it fundamentally changes the relationship of Leah and Joey.

Justvig insist on making Leah optimistic, tolerant and loving in order to try to keep Joey the protagonist. The attempt falls flat. Anyone who has suffered the type of loss that Leah has is reasonably expected to be angry and needy. Leah must demand the things from Joey that she traditionally supplied to him. The caretaker role reversal needs to become the central element of the show. That means a lot more development of Leah’s character and her needs and movement of Joey to a supporting or antagonist role. Joey’s descent into rather pathic behavior, as happens in this version of Anxiety of Laughing, doesn’t work – especially if it is forgiven. Joey’s quitting his job, running away from home, refusing to be there for Leah, and breaking into the Comedy Club to lament what he has lost do not generate audience empathy or sympathy. Justvig has to understand and write Leah as the protagonist.

As currently constituted Anxiety of Laughing has three endings. The first is when Joey breaks into the comedy club and denounces God. It is by far the strongest scene in the show, but it occurs at the 60-minute mark and, if he wants to keep it, he will not have a full one act. Despite its being the best scene in the show, it needs to be discarded.

The second ending is where Leah gets fed up with Joey’s behavior and demands that he improve. He can write quite a few more “Leah” scenes before this one where she threatens divorce and it will probably take the show to where it should go. It would show that Justvig has a real commitment to the work if he does this.

The third is the ending that Justvig is actually using and it makes the least sense of the three. Joey is doing a memorial for Stacey, a year after her death, at the comedy club where she often headlined. As currently written, it reinforces how pathetic Joey is. With a loving wife, a supportive (if practical) mother-in-law and a wonderful friend and mentor, Joey is till wallowing in his mother’s death. It does nothing to make us support Joey’s decisions. If Justvig wants to keep the scene (it is well written), it has to be a memorial to Leah, who despite her fight and defiance, may have succumbed to her injuries (we don’t need a death scene). Doing the memorial on the stage dedicated to his mother would make the scene particularly powerful.

There is so much potential in Anxiety of Laughing, but the show at MITF only points out how far it has to go to be a product where audiences want to invest their time