ha ha ha ha ha ha
Yale Repertory Theatre
New Haven
Through Feb. 7, 2026
“Prooooblem?” sang Estonian clown Julia Masli as she held up a microphone taped to the foot of the scuffed bronze leg attached to her arm.
“Impermanence,” said an audience member.
“What is impermanence?” inquired Masli.
“What we’re dealing with right now is not permanent,” said another audience member, Fiona, followed by a roar of clapping. “This leader is not permanent.”
The clapping was punctuated by the sound of a hammer on stage as an audience member attempted to rebuild a chair that Masli smashed at the start of the show. His problem? Seating. Her solution? Dragging him on stage and gifting him a suite of tools to fix it.
Silliness and absurdity. Tragedy and hilarity. Such is the stuff of life. Masli gets to the heart of it all in her play ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, now at the Yale Rep. The play debuted to acclaim in 2023 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The premise of ha ha ha ha ha ha ha is that Masli wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize by solving the world’s problems. However, her plan is constantly foiled by her making people laugh instead.
Each performance is different from the next because it is driven by the audience, and every audience has a different set of problems. On Tuesday’s opening night, problems included New Haven’s housing crisis, student loans, ICE, President Donald Trump, unemployment, the absence of the divine feminine, pollution, the extremely cold weather, global warming, antisemitism, artificial intelligence, and heartbreak.
Draped in blue fabric and wearing lights and an outlandish bicycle helmet-trumpet contraption atop her braided head, Masli walked around the audience like a beacon, ringing a bell and offering seemingly simple observations, profound statements and in-the-moment solutions.
When no one in the audience could offer Liz, the girl with massive student loans, a new job in public health, Masli gave her a job during the show. Liz was to sit at the desk on stage and search for solutions to the audience’s problems at Masli’s request. Through her, the audience not only laughed but they learned. Thanks to Liz, we discovered we should use the SALUT.E method when encountering ICE and that financialization is the cause of the housing crisis.
Masli’s clowning is disarming because it is sincere. Sometimes Masli responded to problems, with childlike curiosity, “What can we do about that?” When there were no answers, she moved on.
“Yale University, you are too smart,” she said. “I don’t understand anything that you are saying.”
In one of the funniest moments of the night, a contrarian in the crowd spoke up. “Nothing. No problem at all,” he said when confronted by Masli.
“That’s amazing. Oh my God, no problem!” she replied. Masli hugged the man as the audience clapped and danced with him around the theater as the Village People’s “Go West” triumphantly played. Masli danced him right out of the show. “This is a show for people with problems,” she exclaimed.
Naturally, he snuck back in. And Masli grabbed him again. “What are you doing here?” she said. “Explore the world!” She danced him right back on outside. After he snuck in the second time, she gave up on kicking him out.
In another hilarious moment, after discussing the financialization of the housing crisis, Masli asked around the room for investment bankers, people who work in finance or someone with “a little power like the manager of a bakery.” When no one raised their hand, she picked a guy from the audience to be the symbol of the evils of the world. She yelled at him, “It’s YOUR fault!” as the crowd cheered and jeered.
“We must cleanse you now,” she pronounced. Then she dramatically unveiled a white-tiled shower right on the stage. The symbol of evil walked off stage, then eventually came back in a robe.
As the show was ending in a blaze of smoke, he calmly disrobed down to his shorts, entered the shower and turned it on. As he proceeded to shower, Masli embraced the woman she selected to represent the divine feminine on stage. The woman was wearing a just-watered plant taped to her head. Then a medley of lights began flashing as Jennifer Lopez’s “Let’s Get Loud” blared from the speakers. The audience danced in their seats.
In the end, it appeared the only problem solved was audience member Carolyn’s aversion to the cold; Masli dumped other peoples’ jackets, scarves and gloves on her. But really, all of our problems were solved last night as we laughed in delight while Masli burned our socks in a bucket as a symbol of what we must leave behind.
It turns out that naming a problem – out loud, together – can be a form of relief even when the problem itself remains unsolved. Masli may not win the Nobel Peace Prize, but she reminded us that joy, even fleeting and ludicrous, can be a survival tactic.
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha is playing at the Yale Repertory Theatre until Feb. 7. Pick up tickets here.
