Laughing Matters

Four women who are lesbian comedians perform and, offstage, talk about their lives: parents and childhood, coming out, becoming comics, the arc of their careers, and its rewards. Marga Gómez is Cuban-Puerto Rican, from New York City. She mines cultural differences, her hobby horse, and National Coming Out Day. Kate Clinton, lapsed Catholic, gets laughs there and from the comedy of the sex act. Karen Williams, African-American from Berkeley, talks about aging and about the need to tell her story. Suzanne Westenhoefer inherits her grandfather's humor, and she jokes about Martha Stewart and airport security. Each is serious about the power of humor to reveal what's at her core. —<jhailey@hotmail.com>