Stephen O'Keefe

One thing that STEPHEN O'KEEFE needs to do, every time he steps on the stage, is to give the audience enough information about himself and his deafness to allow the audience to adjust their expectations. Then, he has to meet or exceed those expectations by being funny--and not just funny "for a deaf guy."

"If I'm too loud, please let me know. If I'm too quiet, too bad," is one of the brilliant ways that Stephen takes care of his first objective and quickly on to his second, "Welcome to my deaf world."

Unfortunately, there are things that Stephen can't pick up on--like knowing when someone 's cell phone goes off (which one did) or when someone, rudely, starts table talking (as someone did...briefly.) What is nice to see, even from this audience which was getting louder and more chatty as the show went on, is that the need to pay careful attention to what Stephen was saying so they'd be able to get some very good jokes outweighed any rudeness. People really do listen to Stephen--and that basic human reaction clears a path for Stephen to do what he does successfully.

"I dated a deaf girl. When we argued, everything would go right in one eye and out the other."

Brilliant. Encore point...without a doubt.

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