Tip Your Waitress: Marty Miller Brings One-Man Comedy BETH to the Provincetown Theater

If you have a Monday free in August, head over to the Provincetown Theater for Marty Miller’s one-man comedy, playing weekly through the end of the month.

No: scratch that. If you have any plans on a Monday, cancel them now: you’ll thank me for it. Beth is one of the most uplifting, laugh-out-loud, tender, wonderful shows I have seen in years. Marty Miller is warm, funny, engaging… and, at one point or another in the evening, will break your heart. His sense of timing is impeccable; he’s graceful and quirky and (best of all) doesn’t take himself too seriously.

The show is ostensibly about Beth, a cigarette-smoking, hairspray-wearing auntie who gets “all dolled up” for their visit to TJMaxx—but who was his childhood support and hero. Writ larger, though, it’s about growing up gay and taking on an understanding of the world and its many and varied people, events, and attitudes.

Self-billed as “the greatest waitress in the world” (and fitting his act seamlessly into the stage set for The Jack of Hearts Club), Miller begins and ends behind the bar. Waiting tables is a “position for the mentally ill,” he confides, “which makes me perfect for it.” In between telling us about his life, he flits about taking care of diners (“um, yes, there is chicken in the chicken piccata”) while remembering milestones from his teenaged professional life that started with being a bagger at a Market Basket and ended as the highest earner in a pyramid scheme—passing through being a bridal consultant, because of course.

Beth, however, breathes at the heart of every story he tells, every path he goes down. “She was the first person to know I was gay—besides the nurse in the delivery room,” he confides to the audience. Beth always listened, always counseled, always cared. When we learned of her death, audience members audibly gasped.

I don’t want to give any more away here, except to say that Miller’s show is both clever and heartwarming—a tough line to keep, but he achieves it impeccably and seemingly effortlessly.

We’re living in a difficult time, and the best medicine for whatever ails us is still laughter. Do something wonderfully therapeutic for yourself and don’t miss this opportunity to be reminded of all that is still good in our lives.

Review by Jeannette de Beauvoir

Showtimes are 7:00 on Monday 8/10, 8/17, 8/24 at 7pm; tickets are available on the website and through the box office at 508-487-7487.