Brian Byrne takes Chekhov’s tiny one‑act On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco and turns it into a funny, physical solo show. We talk about how the piece started as a half‑hour slot in Pittsburgh and has been stretched, tinkered, and clown‑ified into a roughly 50‑minute tour of petty pomposity, midlife grumbles, and absurd lecture mishaps (yes, it’s literally a guy giving a lecture who goes off the rails). I explain a bit about Chekhov’s original: a one‑character farce/vaudeville style piece where the comic tone lives in language, timing, and the absurdity of a single setting — perfect for a performer who leans on improv and clowning to expand a short text. We also nerd out on practical stuff: how venue size changes intimacy, why tiny costume choices (teeth? gone) shift audience reaction, and how improvisation and physical bits can fill gaps without betraying the original text. Brian’s background in improv, clowning, and physical theatre shows up a lot in the conversation — he wants people to laugh, to maybe be surprised, and to just enjoy being in their seats (no coerced audience line‑dancing, promise). If you want to catch it live, it’s at the Rochester Fringe (Sept 15–26) — shows Friday the 18th at 7pm and Saturday the 26th at 6pm at the MUCC, $10 tickets at rochesterfringe.com — and you can find Brian online at his site under Brian A. Byrne.

Mentioned in this episode:

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Well, that music means it's time for another episode of Just Can't Not.

I'm your host, Chris Lindstrom.

This is part of our previews for the ESL Rochester Fringe Festival, happening from September 15th to the 26th in scenic downtown Rochester, New York.

Go to rochesterfrench.com to get your tickets for as many events as you can possibly go to, and you definitely want to do that.

This, I believe, is our last recording as part of this year's efforts.

So thank you so much to all of the artists.

I'm going to do a recap after, but thank you so much to all the artists.

And I'm here with another artist guest.

Why don't you introduce yourself?

Hi, I'm Brian Byrne.

I am doing the show on the harmful effects of tobacco at the Rochester Fringe starting this week.

Yeah.

So your shows are on Both Friday the 18th at 7, Saturday the 26th at 6pm the shows are over at the Muck.

It's a great venue for this kind of show.

Tickets are $10 at rochester fringe.com so I got a chance to see your show in Pittsburgh this spring.

So I was doing some preview work for the Pittsburgh Fringe Festival.

I met them last year here at the Rochester Fringe and got a chance to work with them.

I mean, the team, it's.

It's so much smaller in scale than the Rochester one.

I don't know if you've had a chance to already look around here and see the scale of what's going on.

I haven't, but I got the sense that just from the kind of the online relation that I've been doing with it, it seemed like very legit and quite, Quite big.

Yeah.

So I got the chance to see the show then.

But before we dive into all that, can you describe this show?

I mean, the paragraph that's there, having seen it, is a description of the show.

I don't know if it describes the show tone.

If you don't understand a few key words in the paragraph meaning you've seen something, that gives you context.

Can you describe the show a little bit to what should people expect coming into this?

Yeah, that's a good question.

And.

Well, so I'm still kind of like developing the show.

So you saw it in Pittsburgh, and that was sort of.

That was my first place that I did it.

Oh, was it really?

Yeah.

And so it's changing a bit as I've done it at a couple other festivals since then, and I feel like I'm still kind of learning what it is like how to make it its best version.

Yeah, let's talk about that for a minute, because I think this is a fascinating part of understanding how a show is developed.

Right.

Very few things are done the first time around.

At a large scale, you might have previews, might have things you're working through on a small scale.

This development might take a long time.

Can you talk about, like, you know, from that.

From that first time doing it, what are the kind of things that you were.

You were feeling that, hey, I wanted to change this, right?

Because, hey, you go through the performances, you know, they.

You know, the performances, you know, they go.

They go the way they go.

I'm not saying they went badly or good.

Right.

There's just.

This is how shows go generally.

Right.

Show goes the way it goes, and the audience reacts.

But it doesn't mean you feel the same way the audience does or you feel something isn't going the right way.

How did that process go?

When you're from there to now, what are the kind of things you were looking at that you wanted to improve on?

Well, I.

So one of the first things was just that when I did in Rochester, I just did.

Sorry.

Pittsburgh.

Yes.

Sorry.

I don't know.

You're all good.

It's been a long week.

I'm right there with you, bud.

When I did it in Pittsburgh, it was just a half hour, like, slot, and the play itself is not that long.

So first there's, like, the growing of it from making it a half hour to an hour show and.

And figuring out what that means.

So, like, a couple changes that I changed my costume a little bit since then.

In Pittsburgh, I was wearing some teeth, and I'm not wearing the teeth currently.

Okay.

I guess I think I'm losing the thread a little bit, but.

No, it's okay.

Like, what I'm kind of intrigued is, like, those are choices, right?

That are.

All those little choices affect how the audience interacts with you, whether it's an interactive show or not.

Like those little choices.

Yeah.

They color how an audience is seeing a show, is watching a show.

Right.

That choice of, oh, the outfit's a little bit different.

Oh, there's not this effect on the teeth or other things.

And I love how, like, all those things change the way a show happens, even if it's seemingly very small.

It's the things that are imperceptible to an audience that they always change how they react to those decisions.

That's why I love talking about those things as they all end up mattering.

You don't always know how it's going to matter until you run it again, until you do a new version of it.

Yeah, and I guess it's also.

I've been, you know.

Well, originally I started kind of working on it by myself and you know, since then I've gotten like, I've worked with some people and stuff, but, but that's also like.

So when I do it the first time I like you learn a lot about how that feels to do it in front of an audience and like.

And then you could kind of take that information and sort of change things is.

Yeah, because you, you just learn so much when you actually put in front of people.

So I want to go back to, go back to the, you know, source material because I think that defines a lot of the tone of the show.

Can you tell me about, tell me about the source material that you're starting with for this show?

Sure.

So, yeah, this is, I believe it's Chekhov's like first, first play, so.

Or it's not even a full.

It's a one act play, but like his first sort of piece of writing for the theater which was, people call it like a Farcer of Vaudeville.

It's like a, it's more like a straight comedy, I think than, than, you know, some of his later like sort of well known sort of masterpieces that, that also have comedy but, but, but have like some deeper stuff going on as well.

And.

Yeah, it's a one act, one character play about this guy.

Should I say what it's about?

Yeah, go ahead, please.

So it's about an older fellow who's told to give a lecture in sort of like a, I don't know, like a community hall.

His, his wife, I guess, sort of put him up to give this lecture about.

About the harmful effects of tobacco.

And so he starts to do that, but the lecture, he kind of gets distracted.

He kind of goes in different directions.

He sort of ends up, you know, just talking about his life, how things aren't going the way he wanted and kind of, kind of has a bit of a breakdown and before sort of sort of trying to recover himself at the end when he's, when his wife appears.

Yeah, I mean, this is so this is a very specific lane of, you know, theater, right.

This, you know, the Russian style.

You know, there's a number of famous, famous productions that'll be, you know, brought back up and brought back in.

This is not one I'd heard much about.

And although I didn't know when I went to the show in Pittsburgh.

I'm not sure I had looked much at it.

I was just like, oh, this is the show after.

I'm going to stick around.

Was that.

It was.

This is, you know, a Chekhov, you know, obviously one of the most famous playwrights, Russian playwrights.

But the.

The tone of this kind of show is kind of singular in, you know, this.

The mentality is very specific.

Can you, like, can you describe how the tone of these kind of shows are?

I'm thinking, like, you know, then it's like, what.

Waiting for Godot is another one.

Right.

You know, these.

These plays that live in these universes that are.

It's often very dry, but also very comedic at the same time.

Can you describe it?

Well, I guess we, you know, I. I could maybe say something about how I read the.

The play.

Yeah, absolutely.

And.

But also bearing in mind that that may not be the same tone as how.

How it happens.

Well, I think that's.

I think that's the other thing too, is right, like, we.

You can go back to, like, you know, you know, you know, professors and, you know, scholars that will write about these things.

And there's.

Oh, there's a defined meaning for things in the end.

Like, you know, the person performing it now might be doing.

Might be reading it differently, might be interpreting it differently.

So it's always like, hey, it's always good to hear what the artist is thinking about it.

Well, I guess one thing I like about Cheka, I think he's often very funny, especially in how he kind of captures the way that people talk and kind of the.

A little bit silly things they say, sometimes like kind of meaningless things or like the sort of.

Sort of pomposity that people portray and then, you know, kind of unknowingly undermine themselves.

And I think that's.

So that.

That kind of stuff is, I think, the sort of comedy that's, like, written into the.

Into the play and.

Yeah, I guess the kind of absurdity of the situation.

Absurdity of some of a relatively simple situation.

Yeah.

And I think that that's the part that is like, it just.

It lives in the absurdity for this extended period of time and the situation.

It's one location, you know, in this case, one act.

Right.

It's just.

It's a functional.

It's one place and it's one person living in that, which is a very specific feel.

Right.

It is not.

This isn't a big production.

This isn't big musical.

This is the words and the actions and the tone.

And then, you know, Messages about class or whatever else and other things.

So it's.

I find it very fascinating because it's so different than a lot of different theater.

Yeah, I get, I like the, the kind of simplicity of it especially, you know, as someone just trying to do like a show kind of independently and sort of on their own.

It's nice that it doesn't require too much and you're kind of seeing what you can do with just, just the words and yourself and, you know, the space that you're in.

Yeah, yeah.

I have to imagine the spaces.

Matt, like you mentioned the space too.

So like the space that you're going to be performing at, you know, over at the Muck is, has this, you know, it's a little bit wider.

It has these, you know, stands and everything.

It's a really, a beautiful space for people to really focus in on you.

Like, when I saw you, we were in like almost a punk rock venue.

Right.

You know, folding chairs on a floor.

And I don't say this in any way to negatively describe it as a functional description.

I thought the venue was great.

Very.

You know, it's small and intimate and you're right up on top of things.

How have you found, you know, at the different locations that the spaces have affected how you.

How things worked?

Yeah, I think they have a huge effect.

Like, I really like this, the space in Pittsburgh as well, like the size of it, the kind of intimacy.

That's the Mr. Roboto project, by the way.

Great little space.

I really loved spending time there.

Great people.

And the owner was fantastic.

Absolutely.

And yeah, and like you're saying in this space, the, the muck, which I'm actually going to this afternoon for the first time, going to do my tech rehearsal.

So I haven't, I haven't been there yet.

But, but what you're saying about it, sort of providing that focus is.

Is really, really nice as, as like a performer when you're trying to.

Trying to do a thing that there's.

There's not too much other stuff to compete with.

Yeah, it's.

It's pretty fantastic.

And I love that, you know, oh, everything effects.

Right.

The reason I focus on these things is I'm.

I'm an engineer.

I love the details.

I love the nerdery of going through these things.

So you mentioned that this is a short play.

I just pulled up the text.

I mean the text is very, is very short.

Right.

And you've now expanded this into a 50 minute thing.

When you're working on expanding, you know, a notable text where do you.

Where do you start?

Do you bring, you know, are you bringing maternity?

Are you bringing personal experiences?

Or you just, like, when you try something on stage, you're writing it down.

How does that process go for you?

Well, different ways.

I.

Then, you know, and I'm still kind of working that out, like.

Like doing it again and kind of finding things that are like, oh, this, this works.

Like, can I expand in this way?

Sort of, you know, there's like, sort of physical actions that.

That I can.

That I can sort of make that aren't in the.

In the.

In the script.

That.

That.

That can be part of it.

Yeah.

And then there's also just, like, sometimes I think you can take a little bit more time with the.

With the text itself in different.

In different places and.

And, you know, there have been times where.

Where I. I finished early and then I. I sort of improvised for a while.

So.

That's.

That's also real.

Right.

That's part of that.

That's part of that whole experience of man.

Sometimes it doesn't.

You're just running a little quick that day.

Yeah, but it's harder without somebody else pacing you.

Right.

Like, when I was in high school, I sang like, you know, chorus music, and you.

Others are around.

You're forcing you to stay in time when it's just you.

You can sometimes, hey, you're just going a little bit faster that day.

Yeah.

And, you know, and I don't know, sometimes it does, like, depend on the.

On the audience to, like, you respond to them.

And if something, you know, if something's going well, maybe you can last longer, and then if something doesn't seem to be, maybe go through it a little faster.

So, I mean, we've.

We talked a lot about the show.

I kind of want to dive into background because this place that this is.

This is, you know, classic.

Classic, you know, play.

Classic theater.

Your background is wildly diverse.

Looking at your website a little bit, you tell me, like, where did you start in your creative journey?

I guess that I.

The first.

My kind of entry into, like, performing and stuff was.

Was through improv, which I kind of got into, like, after college and.

Yeah.

And then I sort of.

I don't know.

I loved it.

And then I just kind of followed that and that kind of led me to, like, clowning and then some, like, physical theater stuff and.

And then sort of.

I've been following that.

That trail.

It seems like there's a lot of, you know, that mentality that performing mentality that improv brings.

Right.

That Being in the moment, you know, playing to an audience, taking feedback, doing all those things.

I hear a lot about that same kind of, you know, the same kind of mentality in many way from people who are deep into the world of clowning.

Right.

And because it's a very diverse, very diverse art form with many different kinds of performing.

Same as improv.

Right.

It's all this.

It adds this element that's sometimes an improv that is physical comedy as well, or physical action.

It doesn't have to be comedy either.

How did you find, like, when you moved from improv into clown, did you find those similarities?

Do you find that you liked one specifically more than the other, or do they kind of dovetail together?

Yeah, I, you know, I guess I felt like clowning, for me was like.

It felt more kind of, I don't know, like, three dimensional or like, I don't want to say like, holistic, but, like, it felt like it was like using everything.

Like your, you know, you're.

You're kind of who you are is like, is very much like the core of it.

And.

And where.

Yeah, whereas, like, I. I love.

I love improv.

It's.

I. I think it can be like some of the funniest stuff.

But, yeah, for me, it felt like clowning was like.

It was like nothing, you know, and.

And every.

And kind of everything.

Yeah, well, because it is like, it has such.

This rich history.

Right.

And it's also wildly misunderstood in modern performing in many ways because people, you know, they only see a certain.

A very small subsection of what it is.

And for me, as somebody, like, I tackle things analytically, right?

Is you can see the echoes of it in so many different styles of performance.

Right.

And like, hey, I'm a. I'm a big, like, professional wrestling fan.

Like, you can see all of those things in there.

It's big.

It's in a.

You know, it's big.

And all these things.

Physical, physical, you know, action, physical storytelling.

And then sometimes those moments can be super funny, but it's those physical moments and then talking and it's beautiful history.

And that's the part I've really fallen for with this too.

And seeing a bunch of shows that have clowning at the core, even if, like, hey, this show is, you know, going down that road.

But there's moments, right?

There's moments of physical comedy that you've brought to this.

Was that.

Did you like integrating some of those things into your performance?

Yeah, uh, yeah, absolutely.

And, yeah, I feel like that.

Well, that's kind of been a little bit of the sort of push and pull with, like, me doing the show.

Like, the show is what it is.

And then, like, kind of how I am and like, what I like to do is the something else is trying to, like, put them together and make them work together.

I guess has been kind of the challenge of the show, but.

But also, like, I. I guess, like, ideally, like, I would just love, like, I don't know whether it's clowning or what, but, like, ideally I would just like someone to, like, see the show and think it's great.

You know what I mean?

And, like, not.

It doesn't have to be this or that, but just like, there's something, you know, you know, there's layers to it.

Yeah.

And it's.

I think that's.

It's.

That's one of those.

It's a pure, admirable goal.

Right.

You just want somebody to see the show and say, that was interesting, or, hey, I want to look into this and learn more about it.

They might not know anything about the original text or your background or anything else.

And it's great to have somebody say, oh, I want to learn more about this, or, hey, that was great.

Thank you for a great show.

And I think we're part of where.

The reason why I love diving into this stuff is what I found through.

I do a lot of work in food and drink, you know, diverse restaurants, your cultural foods.

And when I'm hunting for, you know, somebody who has taken the time to make something great, what.

What you learn, and it's kind of universal is it's basically impossible to accidentally make something great.

You can actually make something that's good, but it's almost impossible to make something accidentally great.

And that's where the intentionality comes into it and, you know, the lived experience, because it's hard to tell a great story if you haven't lived and maybe you haven't been in absurd situations before because you're gonna have a different take on it if you've lived the life and you've been in different situations versus just reading a text.

If you read this at 20 and said, I'm going to perform this at 20, it's going to be a very different show than had you lived the longer life and gone through so many more things.

True.

Yes.

I was thinking about something here about.

Yeah, I guess it doesn't get to be great accidentally.

Sometimes I. I kind of get in a little argument with a friend of mine about this because.

Yeah, I.

You.

You know, I think you're right.

I think it's probably true, but also I think maybe it's like coming kind of from improv, like originally.

Like there's a magic, you know, like you maybe see an improv show and you're like, you know, everyone's making it up.

So it's.

It's not all gonna be like, you know, amazing, amazing, or it's not like a, you know, written, developed play.

But then there are those moments that.

That transcend, like, what's possible from all that planning, I think.

Yeah.

I mean.

Oh, absolutely.

And that's.

I 100% agree.

So for me, it's.

There can be those transcendent moments, but the whole.

Is hard to maintain that greatness.

Right.

Yeah.

And I think that's where.

That's where the work comes in.

Yeah.

Right.

So it doesn't have to be purely planned either.

For me, it's the work that facilitates that opportunity.

And also, like, hey, you might grab that moment and learn something from it that makes your thing, you know, your complete thought better.

For me, like, when I'm the most satisfied is when I see somebody that did the work to make a complete thought and practiced and worked it and did this thing and said, hey, this is.

This is me in this thing.

It doesn't have to be like the one person personal show.

It's that they've really made the effort to try.

And as somebody who struggles with positivity in life, I found that mentality very.

It makes me feel better that, hey, people are trying.

We're trying to bring something special to people, and that trying is worth it.

Doesn't always pay off.

But that process, I think is worth it.

Even if the, like, the end result, it's not there yet, but you keep trying.

And I think that's why I've fallen for that mentality.

But yeah, I agree, those.

Those moments are important to highlight too, because they are special.

Yeah.

Fleeting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I guess.

Yeah.

Ideally you want to be.

Get those all the time.

And I think you're right.

You know, you have to.

If you want something that is kind of repeatable and you can do again and again, you need to.

But then it's like, how do you make it also pop like that and in the moment?

Yeah.

I think that's also the work.

That's the practice.

Yeah.

Do you expect audience interaction in your show at all, or is that something that happens and then you have to play with it?

I. I guess I expect it.

I don't.

I try not to count on it,.

You know,.

Personally, like.

Because I guess when I.

When I go see a show, oftentimes I just want to watch a show.

Me too.

And so.

So I don't.

I don't necessarily want to do stuff that's like, okay, everybody get up.

And you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Which is.

I like.

And I think it can be super fun and you know, all that stuff.

But yeah, that's just so.

So.

So I guess the way that I think I'm gonna.

I'm gonna perform and try and do my best.

And then in, you know, there are moments where, like, there's some.

There's some interaction and like, and it's with the audience.

You know, I'm like kind of, you know, doing it for.

For them.

Yeah, but.

But, you know, you can stay in your seat.

And.

That's the message of the day.

Stay in your seat, Enjoy the show.

What I kind of want to end off with is, so we talked about performing that, you know, you started improv going into clowning.

What about performing itself feels like satisfaction to you?

Right?

Like, what about performing is satisfying?

Because, like, hey, you're.

You're not, you know, as.

As a person.

Right.

You're.

It's.

Oh, biggest bombastic, like, not everybody is that.

What about performing, you know, is just alluring to you?

And what aspects of that does that bring out?

Yeah, I guess it's the.

The kind of freedom of it, you know, like when you're performing, it's like you have permission to.

To be crazy to.

To.

To do stuff that regular life doesn't necessarily seem to, like, call for, you know, like day to day, you know, the coffee shop.

You don't want to be like, you know, going to like 100%.

Yeah.

So I don't know, it's like a.

It's a cool way to like, explore, like, sort of other aspects.

Yeah.

It also brings out, you know, the absurdity of everyday life.

You know, those little moments that you don't linger on every day and you don't get to do the big reaction to the thing, even though you might have that mental spike.

You want to yell out when you drop your water bottle or you knock it off the table.

You want to scream out, like, everything's going wrong today and you have to.

You have to be an adult and be contained.

Exactly.

I just want to.

And I just want to say also, I welcome, you know, interaction.

I'm not trying to, like, make this.

A stayed hard theater.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, please.

No, I like to play with people.

It's nice to have Something to play with.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you know, Brian, this is, this is fantastic.

I mean, I, I did see the show in Pittsburgh.

I really recommend people go out to see this.

This is a.

This is an experience and I think this, it's important to understand, you know, some of these, some of these classic, you know, plays, classic writing and interpreted through somebody that's making it bouncy, making it fun in many ways as well.

So I'm going to get the plugs out again.

So the shows are on Friday the 18th at 7, Saturday the 26th at 6 at the Muck.

Tickets are $10 at rochesterfringe.com.

Brian, where else do you want people to check out your work or follow you?

Great question.

I have a website.

I'm not on the social media choice, giving my phone number.

No.

So it looks like Brian A. Byrne.

That's B Y R N E.

Yeah,.

A lot of good stuff there.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, I'm.

Yeah, I thought I should have a place at least to be online, so.

But yeah, and I guess you can get in touch with me there if you, if you would like.

Fantastic.

Well, thank you so much for coming over to the studio.

For others, if you want to check out other shows on the lunch at our podcast network, go to lunchadore.org check those out.

We have a lot of good stuff coming up and we'll see you out on the fringe.

This has been a presentation of the Lunchadore Podcast Network.

My wife.

My wife is a furry artist.

I travel with her all over the country.

I don't know where she is right now.