Comic Beth Lapides Urges Audiences to Take It Personally

What do you get if you cross a stand-up comedian with a performance artist?

The dynamo that is Beth Lapides, of course--an entertainer who mixes good times with social commentary, together in one wacky package.

Lapides will grace the Highways stage--sporting her usual natty man’s suit, lots of hair and a vaguely Triborough accent--with her monologue “Globe-O-Mania” tonight, Sunday, July 29 and 30. She continues the run with late shows beginning Aug. 5.

She is, as she’ll tell you, a woman who “takes it personally.” Everything is fair game for her critical eye. And she takes it upon herself to explain it all--from fads to the news headlines--in her trenchant analysis of the current state of affairs.

But don’t let her use of the word personally lead you to expect any confessions. Because if you think she’s going to go on about her private life, you can . . . well, fuhgehdit!

“I have no problems in my personal life, so I have to talk about something,” Lapides deadpans to explain how she segues into the bigger picture. “I do talk about personal things, but in the context of the public.”

It’s a strategy designed to demonstrate how world events affect all of our lives. “When you don’t take it personally, there’s this feeling of being disconnected,” Lapides says.

“But everything is connected: the ozone and liposuction, parties and particle physics.”

This synesthetic perspective is the key to her activism, which she feels was inspired in part by the experience of having grown up during the ‘60s.

“I’m 32--26 in Hollywood years--part of the half-generation,” Lapides says, referring to late baby boomers like herself who weren’t old enough to be included in one group, and too old for the next.

That meant she was sidelined during the protests and demonstrations. “In the ‘60s I was old enough to know what was going on, but not old enough to do anything.”

This was particularly a problem since she was raised in the hotbed that was New Haven, Conn. “But Ma,” Lapides whines to imitate a younger self, “why can’t I go to the Black Panther rally?”

She paraphrases from “Globe-O-Mania” to illustrate further: “I was a kind of student activist: I sold happy-face buttons for B’nai B’rith Girls.”

But seriously, Lapides points to the up-side of being part of this “half-generation”: “We’re the ones who’ve still got some energy left. And we’ve been hanging around for years, wondering if there isn’t something we’re supposed to be doing.

“We’ve been spared the idealism, but the vacuum of idealism is filled with a combination of idealism and cynicism. We know it’s not simple: There are all kinds of gray areas.”

Which means that Lapides doesn’t expect her coevals to take to the streets right away. It’s more problematic that that.

“ ‘OK,’ we say, ‘there’s endemic, systemic downward spiraling going on, but we don’t have time ‘cause there’s a little girl stuck down a well.’ ”

“(The little girl) is a symbol for our denial,” Lapides says. “I talk about Charlie Brown the same way. I’d like to see him come of age. Somebody buy this kid a fax. It’s the Betty Ford Clinic, Charlie Brown. But he’s into denial too, you see.”

What Lapides does not want to do is mollify her audience, and she is critical of performers who seek to do that.

“There’s a kind of entertainment where you go and enter the world of the entertainment. The performers are skillful, and they can bring you into that world. But there’s a clash when you do re-enter (the reality outside).”

She, however, wants viewers to leave with questions about how what they’ve heard fits into their lives.

“I’m trying to bridge that gap (between the personal and the social, appealing) to your desire to be productive and connected to the world.”

A world, she is quick to add, that needs to be examined. “There are trends and power structures that need to be taken apart from the bottom. Then we’ll start to see how it all connects.”

“Vast reorganization needs to happen and it can only happen if we’re willing to live with chaos. We’re always talking about law and order. But if we had one, we wouldn’t need the other.”

“Part of what makes me optimistic is the holistic view the New Age takes. Of course, it’s a little goofy too. But that’s the half-generation in me: ‘A movement? Eh, I dunno. I’m suspicious.’ ”