by ***** (out of 5)
Holy shit, she’s good. That’s the first thing I typed into my Notes app after Krystal Evans had finished her hour on Tuesday night.
Evans is from Sequim, a small town atop Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula, and she begins with plenty of jokes about growing up poor in a family that made poor choices. Of course, she’ll eventually get to the inherent trauma that informed the show title. Namely, her mobile home burned down when she was 14, but spoiler alert, she made it out alive. And eventually to burn camp.
But there’s so much more to her story. Her mentally ill mom. Her half-sister, eight years younger, who didn’t make it out of the fire. And that by 16, she may have completed her physical healing, but her emotional healing was just beginning. She left home and Sequim behind not too long after that, eventually marrying a Scotsman and becoming a mother of two now herself. Only since the pandemic did she begin to truly process her upbringing and the multiple tragedies of her family. Only recently could she truly see how unsafe and unusual her childhood was, or voice her suspicions about her attention-seeking mother, who also was a victim because she never received the help and support she needed growing up. Krystal has grown up not only to be a loving, caring mother, but also one hell of a stand-up comedian.
The jokes come fast and frequently. Even amid the darkest moments, she finds the laugh lines.
I may admit a bit of personal bias receiving Evans’s story, upon realizing I was a newspaper reporter in Bremerton, Wash., in March 2000 when her childhood mobile home burned down. Don’t worry. I have an alibi.
And don’t worry about Evans. She has a brilliant comedy career ahead of her.
Krystal Evans: The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp runs through Aug. 27 at Monkey Barrel Comedy, Hive 2
