“Death, let me do my show” at the Steppenwolf Theatre

“Death Let Me Do My Show” with Rachel Bloom/Photo: Emilio Madrid

It's not every day that a show opens with the rousing 1996 hit “Space Jam” and ends with tears in your eyes – but it's also not every day that Chicago audiences get to experience the remarkable range of author and actress Rachel Bloom.

“Death, Let Me Do My Show” is a brisk foray into the chaotic final years of Bloom's life. She acknowledges that many of us have probably experienced similar upheavals in our own lives since 2020, but she will do her best to take us back to a time full of hope and promise, i.e. 2019. (Cue “Space Jam”)

Bloom tries to liven things up with a little singing and dancing, but an uninvited guest wants her in the spotlight. His name is Death, he's been pretty busy lately and is sick of being ignored.

After her musical/drama TV show “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” ended in 2019, Bloom, who was pregnant at the time, began planning her next performance: a one-woman show centered around her penchant for ultra-specific observational humor and raunchy musical-style songs. In March 2020, the pandemic hit. Bloom gave birth in California, and complications sent her daughter to the neonatal intensive care unit. At the same time, her good friend and songwriting partner Adam Schlesinger contracted COVID in New York. Bloom's daughter recovered and made it home. Schlesinger did not.

“Death, let me do my show”, with Rachel Bloom/Photo: Emilio Madrid

It's tragic and not what she wants to talk about, but Death is in the room; he's been acknowledged and he won't take no for an answer. Death also looks a lot like one of Bloom's former colleagues (very funny), and if reliving the trauma on stage is what it takes to silence him, then she'll go for it.

Bloom is a storyteller with grit and talent in abundance. She's open and vulnerable when she talks about motherhood; and she's incredibly relatable, whether she's talking about the majesty of her dog or pondering the meaning of the infinite cosmos. She's also heartbreaking.

This is an exorcism initiated by Death, who goads them out of the audience before taking the stage for his own solo number. Bloom, along with Schlesinger and Jack Dolgen, won an Emmy Award for Original Music and Lyrics for the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend song “Antidepressants Are So Not A Big Deal” (an absolute smash), so it's no surprise that the evening's songs are poignant earworms.

The show lasts a little under ninety minutes, and although Bloom does her best to end it on a pretty note, it still feels a little unfinished. In poetic terms, however, it is beautiful; it ebbs and flows, just like the grieving process. At the end, Bloom is able to share the stage with Death, and he joins her for a reprise of the song he interrupted at the beginning of the show.

“Death, Let Me Do My Show” is hysterical, honest and tenderly beautiful. Bloom's ability to turn her grief into art is a testament to those she has loved and lost. How lucky to have something worth singing about.

“Death, Let Me Do My Show” runs through August 24 at the Steppenwolf Theater in the Downstairs Theater, 1650 North Halsted. Tickets are $59-$119 and are available at (312) 335-1650 or steppenwolf.org.