Lacee Rains Comedy Special: “Face/On”
LowDown
April 5, 2024
Tulsan Lacee Rains is a former slam poet turned self-described clown — ”the president of idiotville!!!!!” as her Threads profile puts it. In “Face/On,” her first comedy special, filmed live at LowDown, she took a sold-out audience on a fascinating journey that proves she is also a triumphant comedian.
Before filming began, the usually-moody underground jazz club crackled with energy, the crowd growing, the cocktails flowing. Tulsa’s comedy community turned out big in support of Rains. Evan Hughes, a producer for the special, introduced the night and warmed the crowd’s heart with his vintage blazer and signature soft-serve jokes.
Chaz “Thunderwof” Stephens, another popular Tulsa comedian, kicked off the show in a searing-red blazer and black shades with an opening set that raced by. Thunderwof’s unique delivery leans on a unique method. He writes the jokes, as he said, but he doesn’t choose the jokes. Instead, a friend stationed across from the stage drew prompts Thunderwof had prepared and read them out loud for the comic to riff on. If a joke didn’t land, Thunderwof dropped it and called for another prompt: no pauses or transitions in the action. He was able to draw gobs of material out of thin air, like a magician pulling jokes out of an enchanted hat. His act kept the audience’s attention rapt and ready for the night’s main event.
With an engaged crowd seated right up close, Rains took the stage in a striking vintage red pantsuit, exuding playful charm. She commanded the audience for nearly an hour with an impressive amount of sharp material. She swam mischievously in the choppy waters of her “competitive” Catholic upbringing, her battle with mental health and an eye-opening stay in a mental ward after suffering from suicidal ideations.
She deep-dived into her delusional relationship/obsession with Nicolas Cage and the creation of her alter ego “Butterslutz the Sex-Ed Clown,” as well as getting engaged recently after years of strange, disappointing dating experiences. Punchline after punchline landed well with a rowdy crowd. Before being released from that mental ward, she was instructed to list two reasons she wanted to stay alive. “I put Nicolas Cage,” she crowed, “and to be Butterslutz the Clown.”
The real punchline is: she was serious. Rains salvaged her own mental health through comedy and clown makeup — telling jokes to save her own life.
Her obsession with Cage offered plenty of fodder, but it was Rains herself and her clownish alter ego who proved to be the true stars of the show — particularly as she ventured into material about her serious, lifelong interest in the overlap between sexuality and spirituality.
While exploring her own feelings on this intersection, she briefly attended Franciscan University to become a nun. There she met a professor she dubbed “Deacon Dick,” who asked her class one day what made a woman decide abortion was okay. As a naive Catholic teen, she didn’t know how to answer “Deacon Dick” then. But she’s made sure she can answer him confidently now, her whole show becoming a comedic exploration of her search for truth, for the words to tell off all the “Deacon Dicks” she’s ever met.
Rains riffed fearlessly about her hard-over-correcting pursuit of a career in sex therapy after deciding against the nunhood. She offered up zingers about her earnest college effort to create a survey that explored the intersection of sex and faith. (She found many illuminating answers in the experiences of the 500 Oklahomans who responded to her queries.) It was in the crosshairs of these two concepts that Rains took the most careful aim. Her bright, unusual mind shined as she recounted the twists and turns she’s taken in search of understanding — of herself and the world around her, and of the tangled relationship between the spirit and the flesh.
It’s quite an achievement for a first full-length comedy special. With “Face/On,” Rains emerges as a powerful storyteller, driven by a fervent determination to find and tell her truth.
