The Sweet Sound of Laughter, at Long Last : Hearing-Impaired Comic Makes Routine of Her Adversity

Kathy Buckley remembers the first time she heard an audience laugh at one of her jokes.

It wasn’t the first time the comedian performed on stage--she made her comedy debut in May of last year during a competition sponsored by United Cerebral Palsy. She didn’t hear the laughter then. She could only feel the vibrations through the stage floor.

It wasn’t until the summer, when Buckley performed at the Hollywood Comedy Room in West Hollywood, that she finally understood the power of her humor. For the first time in her brief career as a comedian, her hearing aids were properly adjusted; she could hear the audience without the painful feedback from on-stage speakers. When she stepped off stage, she cried.

Buckley, who lives in North Hollywood, has been hearing-impaired since birth. But in the last nine months she has appeared at some of the most popular comedy clubs in Los Angeles.

“I was raised in a hearing culture, thinking there was something wrong with me,” Buckley said. “Nobody explained anything to me to help me understand I’m not retarded. I feel my hearing impairment is a gift. It makes me different from the next person. You get a real strength when you take something negative and turn it into a positive.”

After two rounds of competition, Buckley, 35, placed fourth in the United Cerebral Palsy comedy competition, “Stand-Up Comics Take a Stand.” Since her participation in that competition at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, Buckley has also appeared on the comedy television series “Funny People,” which had a short-lived run on CBS, and on the United Cerebral Palsy Telethon broadcast nationwide last month and locally on KTTV. In addition, she has worked at the L.A. Cabaret in Encino, the Ice House in Pasadena, and Igby’s in West Los Angeles.

“She has a heartwarming act and is delightfully entertaining,” said Elaine Tallas-Cardone, publicity director and booking agent at the Ice House. “She’s inspirational. After seeing her, people feel good. She’s making people laugh and touching their hearts as well.” In recent weeks, Buckley has been booked to do a 15-minute opening act at the Pasadena comedy house, and she anticipates future engagements there.

Buckley has done well for a newcomer on the circuit: She usually is able to get stage time four to five times a week. “To go out there and see little hearts glow, it’s what I love,” she said. “I’m allowed to be me. The people accept me with my hearing loss.”

Despite her success, comedy doesn’t pay the bills, so she continues to work as a holistic health exercise and massage therapist.

Performing seems to come naturally to Buckley. Consider one of her December appearances at L.A. Cabaret. It was a rainy, miserable night just before Christmas, when few Angelenos were willing to venture onto Ventura Boulevard for a few laughs.

Buckley later said that as she stared at the sparsely filled room, she prepared herself for her first “bomb.” It never did come.

Instead, she had the audience--albeit a small one--laughing at her past adversities.

She shared memories of her childhood and the games she used to play--like musical chairs. “There’s a game for a deaf kid,” she said sarcastically. And when she played hide and seek: “I’d be counting 3,001, 3,002, before someone would come looking for me .”

Just after Christmas, Buckley was invited to emcee--introduce performers and tell jokes between acts--at the Ice House. Certain gestures in sign language are similar to obscene ones, and Buckley enthusiastically demonstrated those signs as part of her act. With regard to her slight speech impediment, she explained that people presume she’s from New York.

Buckley admits that her hearing impairment “works as a hook to get me in the door” of comedy clubs. But she said it’s not enough to guarantee success. “I want to be known as a good comic,” she said, “not a handicapped one.”

Buckley “has a lot of good material that stems from her handicap,” said Beth Maure, general manager of Igby’s. “Every comic uses what they have. It’s what makes you different from everyone else, so you never want to get too far away from those unique qualities.”

Sounds that her audiences take for granted, Buckley listens to with genuine awe. It was only two years ago that she got her present hearing aid, the one that makes it possible for her to hear all these “new” sounds. Further adjustments were what finally allowed her to hear laughter on stage.

“All my life, people kept asking me, ‘What don’t you hear?’ ” she said. ‘ “How am I supposed to know?’ I’d tell them. Now I know what I haven’t been hearing.”

Buckley grew up in Wickliffe, Ohio. It wasn’t until she was in the second grade that her hearing problem was detected. Until then, Buckley could not talk; she could make only sounds. Her family, she said, “thought I was slow. They thought I was lazy. They thought I would outgrow” the inability to talk.

“I played by myself. I was in my own world.”

When it was finally determined she had a hearing impairment and was given hearing aids, she said they were very painful. Their amplification level was too strong, and sounds were too loud. Buckley’s reaction was to cry, which didn’t help those around her understand her predicament. They quickly lost patience with her.

For a time, she attended a school for the handicapped, where she learned to talk. Eventually, in the fourth grade, she was transferred to public school. It was here that she learned to be a mimic, just so she could get by and feel accepted. She also tried her best to make people laugh.

“But I didn’t know if they were laughing with me or at me,” she recalled.

Although she was not a good student--she had difficulty hearing and understanding her teachers--she excelled in home economics and later took up fashion design.

After a debilitating accident--while sunbathing at age 20, she was run over by a jeep--she moved to Los Angeles. It took her five years to recover. Since her arrival in Southern California, she has been employed as a free-lance fashion designer and a manager of an exercise club, as well as a massage therapist.

Now, after living here for 13 years, she hopes to make her mark as a comedian.

“I really want to make people feel good inside,” she said. “I want people to come into my world so we can laugh together. I want to hear the laughter.”