Theatre artist Brian Copeland’s one-man show The Waiting Period, which premiered at the Marsh San Francisco in 2012, is all about grappling with suicidal depression and what to do when you feel like nothing can be done. Despite the bleak subject matter, it’s a wonderfully funny show that explores some of the darkest depths of the human psyche. Copeland was having a particularly hard year in 2008. His grandmother died, his marriage fell apart, and he was badly injured in a car accident. Things got so bad that he bought a handgun with the intention of committing suicide. But in California, there’s a 10-day waiting period before you can actually take a firearm home, and during those 10 days Copeland got through the worst of his depression.
In The Waiting Period, he tells the audience all about what he went through during that time-span — and, most importantly, how he came out of it.
