Sam Kisijukian (3:55)

Oftentimes, I'm trying to do a no carb meal. I'm trying to do a protein heavy meal. The fact that they have all of these dietary options specifically catered towards me is so helpful because I literally only have two minutes every single day to heat up my meal to make sure that I get back to work, sit down and have my lunch. Is that sound like a mental health thing? Maybe. But it's all the time that I have. So the fact that factor meals always consistently only take me two minutes to heat up in the microwave saves me so much time and I'm able to still have a balanced, nutritious meal.

Matt Wolfe (4:26)

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James Marino (4:55)

All right, let's send you over to Matt where he's talking with Sam Kizajukian about the vineyard's return engagement of 300 paintings.

Matt Wolfe (5:14)

Well, Sam, thank you for taking the time to talk about this show. It's a fascinating construction of not only an art piece, but a theater piece. But I'm interested because you started this show back in Australia. You have done it in places all over the world. You are now doing a return engagement here in New York City. How. How are you taking the New York audiences? Are they giving you something different than audiences either back home or anywhere else around the world has given you so far?

Sam Kisijukian (5:42)

Yeah, Absolutely. As you said, it started in Australia and then in August last year I, I did it at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival where the Vineyard Theatre saw it and brought me to New York. And I think I've. There's been some calibration doing it in New York, but it's easily my most favorite place of doing it. I think like a lot of the show deals with, you know, identity loss, overcoming degrees of adversity and kind of, you know, discovering different careers and like having a sense of self and I and getting obliterated and going through a mental health crisis and bouncing back. And I think just this is a testimony to the city. I think the city people come with ego, they're going to pursue a career and then the city just is its own animal and breaks you down and it's very confronting and any underlying mental health issues get surfaced and then you have to tackle that and then you build yourself back up and then maybe that doesn't work out and you start again. And everybody that I meet here is so multi talented, you know, if you look at their Instagram bio, they've got seven careers happen currently. And so I feel like the show seems to be a good reflection of the city. People really connect with it here and perhaps, you know, that's why it got brought back and, and I love doing it here. I mean, humor wise, there is a bit of a shift. The Australian humor is very different to the New York humor. And I'm glad to do the remount because I think this time around the show is feeling a lot. I think I really understand more so the New York sensibility. On a humor level, what's the difference? In Australia we imply what we mean by saying what we don't. Some people might call it sarcasm. And I think here, you know, it might be the very nature of the city. It's a difficult city. I think you have to really get to the point. People are very succinct, clear, they walk fast, they speak fast, they don't want to waste time. And in Australia we take our time to get to where we're going and we're not very content driven. I think in Australia we're very interested in, you know, who the person is and what their vibe is. And here people like, just give me the information. And so I think when that relates to humor as well is I've had to kind of adjust my directness.

Matt Wolfe (8:00)

Does that impact the actual script or words that you were saying or just in the way that you present the jokes and the story that you're telling.

Sam Kisijukian (8:11)

Well, you just used a trigger word for me, which is script.

Matt Wolfe (8:15)

Okay, no script.

Sam Kisijukian (8:17)

So both to my. To the theater's dismay, and this is new process for all them. So I'm very new to theatre. I'm not from theatre. I performed show in a theater, like, to the level that when they said at the beginning, like, okay, we're doing rehearsals, and they put me in front of just the artistic director, Sarah Stern, and she said, oh, okay, do the show. And I was like, but there's no audience. Like, why would I do it? I don't understand the benef. Even we did the first show, they said places. And I said, what places? Like, I really didn't. Didn't know. And so. But then on my end, I have, like, a very specific process of working where I find, you know, I'm telling my own story. And I feel by using my mind works visually. Like, I see scenes in my head and I describe them to the audience in front of me. Because the show is about bipolar, and I have bipolar. My mood fluctuates, and so it feels. Feels inauthentic to use the same words every night. Because, like, there are shifts within myself and especially the audiences. They come from very different demographics. Like, sometimes I'll get 30 psychiatrists in. You know, sometimes I'll get 100 school kids in. And then it's like, well, the show, I really honor the people that are there and their energy on the night. So real time. I adjust the ways I describe the story to them. Much like you tell a story to a group of friends, then you go to a completely different group of friends, and you kind of feel out how they're responding to something and how you can better. I mean, it's just communication. How can I best communicate the story? The words are allowed to change to better fulfill that. It also keeps it interesting for me to have, like, that constant risk. It makes me feel present. It means that the story never dies for me because I don't feel like I'm not an actor. And so, you know, if I can't live with the words if they. If they stay the same.

Matt Wolfe (10:06)

Well, it's interesting, you say you don't come to this from a background in theater. You are a comedian by trade. But you did talk about the fact that you're a visual person. You see things. Before you started this whole process, throughout the manic episode of making these paintings, did you have an art background? Was that something that you were interested in or did or was it just something that kind of manifested itself at this specific point in your life, it really did manifest.

Sam Kisijukian (10:33)

At this specific point I felt very disillusioned. I quit comedy after 10 years and it left a massive gap in my soul and CV and I didn't have any other skill sets. And so I kind of just chose a pace of isolation to figure out what to do next. Which was an old cake factory in Sydney, Australia, and it was just a big concrete bunker. And I just stayed in there in a kind of self imprisonment trying to figure out what to do. And then I had the idea to start painting. And once I started, it just was a furious intensity. And so I started painting every day and kind of. And I triggered, triggered a manic episode which went for six months. And what I unconsciously did was started documenting my mental states. I didn't know that at the time. And so I kind of have this visual dialogue with myself going through this. And usually with manic episodes that people experience, they don't always have the best memory. It's very hard to explain to others like what they went through just using words. And so I don't think of like painting as terms, in terms of like an art object. I just think of it as a different medium of communication. And I think everybody thinks very differently. Some people think visually, verbally, they think in a written text, audio, a combination of the both. And so for me, I've never had to worry about good or bad in art because I'm just like, oh, I've got a way that I can communicate that I can superimpose with verbal discourse in a show. And I show the slides of the paintings and kind of go through them. So yes, it came out of nowhere. But more than anything, it's created and also a distance for me. Like when I used to perform, the audience is the audience and I'm the performer. When I make an artwork, the artwork becomes the performer and I am the audience. And so it actually builds bridge between my conscious mind and my subconscious and unconscious. So weirdly, what has happened is really unlocked a lot of like self understanding and how I think and actually the process behind it. And that's really what the show is on one level is it's turning, it's highlighting the thinking and creative process as an, as the object for the audience to see as opposed to the final product. So mostly you see a painting on a wall, you say that's the art. I'm trying to say like the art of thinking through all the failures and clunkiness before that. That's what I like to highlight.

Matt Wolfe (13:01)

In the show, how does that change an audience's response? We're so conditioned to think of whether it's comedy, it's the joke. If it's theater, it's the show. If it's art, it's the painting or the sculpture, whatever. When you are asking them to think not of the product but of the process, how does that change how they receive those things? How does it change what they are striving to appreciate and understand? If it's more about the ins and outs and the mental gymnastics that goes into creating something, if they're not just looking at, oh, this is the final product here, judge it.

Sam Kisijukian (13:38)

Well, I think the process behind producing anything is the most human aspect of it. I think the final thing is a magic trick. And, you know, the show. I'm not trying to make an artwork or a theater show. It's like, it's just really trying to look at the ineffable aspects of emotion and your mental states. And I thought it was so specific to me, and I never thought I'd be doing this show. Like, I did it once in Australia, and I never thought I'd do it ever again. Like, literally, like, three nights. And then it just kind of has kept going. And what I found is there's a universality to it in that, you know, there's all these aspects of ourself that feel unseen. I mean, you hide your process and you show the finished product, but, like, what is more you. What you show people or what you won't show people because you think that they will go, oh, we see what that really is, okay? And so I feel like the fact that I've just focused on that is, like, everybody's been resonating with it because they're like, yeah, that is more me. I do think those little insecurities when I'm making something and that my best work's behind me. And I did have all those stupid ideas, and then I zoned in on this one, and that was a huge mistake. Then I spent two years following. Like, that feels human. And so I really try and make the show feel human. And that's also why there's no script, is because I want to. I never want to adopt the identity of being a performer, because I think the moment I do that, then I slip into the same issue I faced and why I quit comedy is because I think when you're really wanting to be something and you think about what the rules of that is, and how do you be like that, how do you behave and what do they expect? But as a human being, it's all you can be is yourself. And so I really try and it's not trying to do things. It's like, how do I protect myself so I can give people, you know, that connection. People connect with humanity, I really think. And.

Matt Wolfe (15:30)

Yeah, yeah, no, I love that you talked about the fact that like, you didn't actually even remember what was going on necessarily when you were painting these individual paintings. When did you, when did you realize after the fact that you were going through that mental, you know, manic episode and dealing with the highs and lows of bipolar disorder? Was that something that you, I mean, ever recognized during the process or was it immediately after? Was it months, years after? When did you kind of put all of those pieces together?

Sam Kisijukian (16:06)

So I, I was diagnosed six months after the episode. And you know, I think there's like, definitely like part of this, like, ego that I've had for a long time. And I imagine a lot of people have where it's just like, I can fix myself. I don't need help. I can fix myself. And so what happened is after the manic episode, I experienced like a very severe six month depressive episode. And I just, it just felt completely hopeless and I didn't know what to do. And I think it killed that part of me that was like, I don't need help. And that's when I went to a therapist, took me to a psychiatrist and I got the diagnosis. I think like during, when the mania was happening, like, especially towards the end of it, I did realize, like, well, this isn't normal. But you know, you often hear of people having manic episodes and, or remembering back and actually thinking of them fondly. And I think a lot of the reason is that, you know, with bipolar you can experience like long periods of depression. And you, you remember during the depression that you can function really well. And so you try and do things to get out of the depression. So when you, you think it pushes you back to stability, but it pushes you sometimes into mania. But then when you're manic, you're like, I need to get as much done because I can function. Like, you can think really quickly. You become very creative because a lot of the traits of a manic episode, when combined, you know, in short bursts, are helpful for creativity. But then together they become oppressive. So I felt like if I just make as much things as possible, how can it be bad if I'm making all these paintings? Like, there must be something positive about this. And so I just followed it But I followed it too hard and for too long that it, you know, obviously it went sideways.

Matt Wolfe (17:43)

Yeah. And when, when you kind of figured out what was going on in that time and then everything that happened afterwards, where did the idea to kind of talk about it through this show, whether it was just three nights, you know, or whatever, but where did the idea to kind of tell your story both visually and in a more traditional storytelling way? When did all that come together and how did that idea come come to be?

Sam Kisijukian (18:09)

Well, I think like after the diagnosis, like, like there was a few things that were happening. My memory was severely affected. I think I had probably had some degree of brain damage, which I probably still do in terms of very much affected my short term memory. Also, the medication that I was put on to help stabilize me was still in the early stages and the two effects that it has was slowing the synapses firing in my brain and my short term memory recall. And I, I got a call back to performing, I'd quit stand up comedy. I didn't think I'd do it again for a year. And then I got asked by the Sydney Fringe Festival to do a show and I was just, I thought, oh, maybe I'll just get back on stage and I'll do some of my old comedy. And then the night before I thought, oh, I'll just, you know, I have this window of my life that no one understands. And every time I try and explain to people, like some of the stories of what happened when I was manic out of context, people just think I made them up. And so I really wanted to explain that there is a logic between, there is logical thinking and it does get misguided. But if I go through, I just thought, I'll get a projector, I'll put the artworks up chronologically and then that will help me remember, like, in terms of like where I'm at chronologically in the show. But I can also stop and talk about each section, what I was going through and then reflecting back on. And then I just invited everybody that I'd spoken to on the phone during my manic episode to try and explain to them, like, hey, this is what I went through. Because people just didn't understand. And so it was actually like on self therapy.

Matt Wolfe (19:44)

That's amazing.

Sam Kisijukian (19:44)

And then I thought that was it. I thought it was done. I thought, I won't do it again. But then it just kept getting asked to do it.

Matt Wolfe (19:52)

Has that opened you up to doing more traditional stand up again? Or have you. Is that still kind of do you still consider yourself quit from stand up. And if you're going to do something, it'll be more like this in the future.

Sam Kisijukian (20:07)

Well, I think the skill set is still there. I mean, I did stand up for 10 years. I mean that skill set is apparent in the show. Like you can't hide from it. And I think the goal, I have different goals now. The goal is communicating ineffable states of mental illness and emotional states and the creative process. And so if they're the goals, then I will lean on every skill set I have to best communicate that. And I think comedy is an amazing vehicle to, to because I think if you can get people laughing and enjoying, they can enjoy a show at that surface they're like, well it's funny, so that's. We can enjoy that. Then it also lowers people's defenses that you can actually feed in more difficult ideas that would usually bring people's defense up. And so it acts like a comedy, acts like a Trojan horse in a way. So it's a great medium. You know, I also think storytelling is a fantastic medium to put in complex ideas because people know how to, how to follow a story. They know they sit down in a show and listen to a story. So it's like all different mechanism I've to do. People know to sit in the cinema and see images on the screen. They know how to look at art and how to behave. And so I feel like I'm just like hijacking all these things to like reach the goals. So I don't know what medium it really fits in. And if anyone who reads any reviews, the reviewers are so confused. They're like, is this a TEDX talk? Is this, what is this a comedy show? It's like they don't.

Matt Wolfe (21:33)

They.

Sam Kisijukian (21:34)

People are actually having a very hard time with genre. There's an art exhibition afterwards, like, what's, what's going on?

Matt Wolfe (21:41)

Do you enjoy that? Do you enjoy seeing everybody kind of like wrap themselves in circles trying to figure out what they just saw, like declassified. Obviously they know the story, but like, is it kind of fun to see them kind of have as many issues as they are to kind of put it into a box that it clearly doesn't fit in?

Sam Kisijukian (21:57)

I mean, I think people like boxes, you know what I mean? I think some people love the exploration of something new. And I think some people, you know, if they can't put something that they can't understand what form it is, it can be, you know, it can cause a recoil. But I saw that I enjoy It. No. I mean, I just. Honestly, I'm not. I haven't made something that I think is, like, unique. I'm literally just trying to reflect what is most me into a piece, and it's not up to me to define what it is. I mean, if I ever. I feel like people define what something is just so that people know how to book them to do that thing for work, you know? And so I just haven't done that this time. I'm just like, well, this is what I'm doing. It's other people that are like, hey, you should do this in a theater. I never thought to do that. I didn't know that that was a genre that this could sit in. And then I'm getting asked to do it in art museums and art galleries and institutions, and they're like, they see it as a different thing. And then comedy clubs see it as a different thing. I've stopped doing comedy clubs for this show. I think more the form of what something is is helpful for the. The audience that would best connect with it. And I found theater amazing because I think people really approach something like it's its own independent piece of art, which. Which we will give the performer the. The ability to show us what they want to show us. I think in comedy, every 10 seconds, if they're not laughing, that transaction feels like it's not. You're not fulfilling your deal, and you're failing, and things can go south very quickly. And so I think theater has really helped me kind of allow the show to shift. It's become longer. It was originally 60 minutes. Now it's 90 minutes, because I can really settle into ideas and explore themes because people are willing to go there, because I guess they're trying to do that in theater, and I really respect that, and I love it.

Matt Wolfe (23:44)

Well, I'll wrap up with a question that I realized in asking it might be an impossible question to answer. The show is called 300 Paintings. Do you have a favorite painting of the ones that's included in the show?

Sam Kisijukian (23:58)

Yes. I can understand why you'd say, is that an impossible question? I think every. Like, honestly, I don't have a favorite painting. And this is the reason. I mean, I bet you thought I might say that, but I do every painting. I try and do every painting in a single sitting. And so it, like, captures an emotional state. And I have no idea what that painting really is about until much later. Mostly when you see a photo of you when you're your early teens and you see your haircut and how you're dressing and you see all the insecurities that you're oblivious to at the time. I think of the artworks that I make like that I have no idea what they are till later, and I'm like, oh, my God, look at that flawed thinking. And you were really ego and trying to do this. And so I think, like, in a way, there are certain pieces where I look at, I just think, like, aw, Sam, look what you were trying to do. I have fond memories because they're just little parts of me that I don't always get to see. And so it's almost like they're like a weird family. So it's hard to pick a favorite, maybe.

Matt Wolfe (24:55)

Yeah, it's like they always say, like, your ideas or your pieces of art are all your little. Your babies. And it's hard to pick a favorite. So I definitely understand that. Well, I'll wrap it up on this, Sam. People are coming to this show, whether it's theater and art, exhibition, comedy, whatever they expect it to be. But what do you hope that they walk out of the Vineyard Theater having discovered either about you, about art, or about themselves? What are you hoping they take away from this evening at the theater?

Sam Kisijukian (25:27)

Well, I'm not so interested in what people will discover about me. You know, I think that it's. I really try and be generous with the show, and I think that everybody will, you know, project their own psychology onto things that they don't fully understand. So I'm not really trying to give people an answer or conclusion. It's. Yeah, I imagine just like opening a conversation in ways that maybe they've not thought about recently. Maybe thinking some kind of empowerment about, like, you know, like, people that. That live very internally. And I think a lot of people that have, like, mental illness do, you know, they don't feel. Understand. It's like I see it as a strength because you see the world in a different way. Like, I think if you've struggled with mental health during your life, you've had to creatively problem solve how to navigate society that isn't set up for you. And so your creative problem solving muscle is very strong and honed. And I think when you apply it to a creative medium, you have a huge strength and huge unique viewpoint. And so I think part of the show is like, hey, this part of you that you don't want to show is really interesting. And I encourage people, like, just get it out there. But, you know, without saying that.

Matt Wolfe (26:31)

Yeah, well, I love that. Well, congratulations on the success of the show. The return engagement, all of the other places that want you to do it, whether it's museums, theaters, whatever it is. And I'm fascinated by it and wish you all the luck in the future with everything else.

Sam Kisijukian (26:46)

Thank you so much.