Julia Sweeney’s one-woman show God Said, “Ha!” may have had only a short Broadway run in late fall 1996, but her comic monologue about the worst year of her life lives on as a book and a CD. A former ensemble member on “Saturday Night Live,” where she developed her “It’s Pat” character, Sweeney turns family tragedy into bittersweet farce with her account of how her brother contracted lymphoma, her parents came to live with her and then she herself was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Somehow she found a way to laugh at it all, and that process is part of the story as well.
The CD of the monologue, recorded at its pre-Broadway engagement at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles, was released by Warner Bros. The much expanded hardcover book version was released by Bantam Books.