Watching Emily Weitzman talk to a couch as if it were her ex-lover brought two names to mind: JD Vance and Andy Kaufman.

“You were special…Not just any couch: a pull out couch,” she said, addressing a large sofa on stage last night at The Tank, as part of EdFest, But the romance didn’t last. “I started to notice all the shit stuffed under you… dirty sock and baseball bat and cat hair. You didn’t even have a cat.”

In “Furniture Boys,” which will be presented next month at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Weitzman reminisced about a lamp (“ I realized he wasn’t that bright”), a drawer (“I could never get him to open up.”), a grandfather clock (“a bit too old for me”), and chairs, many chairs, all of them gathered around the stage with her, all of them with names (or pseudonyms) of her ex-boyfriends. It was funny at first, a series of clever puns. Sometime before the end of the hour, the show turned uncomfortably weird – perhaps when she started singing “Do you want to see my insides?” and passed around some framed X-rays; certainly, when, accompanied by a soundtrack of Edith Piaf singing “La Vie En Rose,” she presented a slideshow and then a video chronicling her relationship with a broken chair, showing them together in a park, on a roof, in a lake. This was  Andy Kaufman territory — performance art where you’re not sure whether or not they’re kidding.

“I’m honored by the comparison,” she said when we talked later. “I definitely want to make the audience question. Like Julio Torres. I’ve been describing the show as a blend of theater, comedy, clown, spoken word and furniture showroom. But I could certainly throw performance art in there.” It’s not as if she’s unacquainted with the genre; she teaches a class in writing about performance art as part of her full-time job as a lecturer at Columbia. 

By contrast, Weitzman is far from honored by her association with the other name that comes to mind, JD Vance, but it was inevitable. When the fake rumor of his carnal relations with his couch went viral, “I got so many text messages. I was already doing the show. At that point, I had done the poem for fifteen years.”

By “the poem,” she means the love poem to the couch that begins the show. She composed it 15 years ago, inspired by her then-boyfriend. That’s another video she presents in “Furniture Boys” – the teenage Emily reciting some of the verses.

By She had been thinking for a while of turning her playful poem into a full work of theater, and always dreamed of having a show at the Edinburgh Fringe. “I fell in love with shows that started at Edinburgh: Fleabag, and I May Destroy.” But she didn’t hunker down until she went to Edinburgh in 2023 for her brother’s show there (“We’re a performing family”) “it was so cool to be surrounded by theater and comedy and people who love theater and comedy everywhere. That’s the moment I thought I want to do this.”

A half hour version of “Furniture Boys” ran briefly a year ago at Soho Playhouse, and she’s since performed it in other venues and out-of-town festivals, each time adding more time, more bits, more furniture. “People now text me all the time with pictures of furniture they see on the street; artists have started  making me tiny chairs.”

She hopes this has prepared her for Scotland. “I’ve had people tell me ‘I went to Edinburgh and cried every day’. I’m sure it will be a roller coaster.  I’m ready for the ride.” After all, she’ll have lots of support. “The blow up couch, Evander, is coming with me.  I’ve broken my already broken chair even more so that it fits in my very big suitcase, too, as do the dining room table leg, small grandfather clock, lamp, picture frame. Then, I plan to find more furniture in Edinburgh.”

Furniture Boys by Emily Weitzman will run July 30 – August 25 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, at Underbelly.

Excerpt From Furniture Boys

I know what you’re thinking: Why are the boys… furniture?

It’s a fair question. But you see: BOYS and FURNITURE are much more similar than you think. 

Let’s compare a BOY and a CHAIR… Emily moves a chair center stage and examines the chair. 

A chair looks like a boy in that they both have parts that add up to a whole. They both have arms, they both have legs, they both have backs. 

Boys and chairs have spaces to climb on (when you ask them politely). [Starts to climb onto chair, to the chair:] – Is this okay? [To the audience:] He says it’s okay.

I like sitting on both boys and chairs.

Boys have names and chairs could. 

Boys like to name. Boys name their cars and their boats and their dicks and their sandwiches. They name the borders they cross and the storms they weather. 

And it’s not just chairs: A clock can tell you the time. And a boy can tell you the time, too. You can turn on a lamp and you can turn on a boy. You can go to bed with a boy and you can go to bed… with a bed. 

I know there are some differences – like boys talk and furniture tends not to. But that could be an improvement. I mean isn’t that what every heterosexual woman wants? Something that looks like a boy, but shuts the fuck up like a chair!?

[In different voices:] Boyyyyssss. BOYYYSSS. BBBOOOOYYYYSSSSSSSSSS. 

Now when I say boyssssss, what I really mean is men, but I much prefer the soft sounds that shape the word boysssssss to the sharpness of men. Men, men. Men is harsh, hard on the tongue. The word “men” is over before it even begins. What’s a plural without an S? I mean I would at least prefer Furniture Mens to just men.

Boys is a word which elongates into itself, holding, in one syllable, a whole story – a beginning, middle, and end: BOYYYSSS.

Remaining Performances at EdFest

July 16:
Paperclip
kaddish (how to be a sanctuary)

July 17
FISH
The Other Mozart

July 19
Lizzy Sunshine

July 20
A Drag Is Born
Salem Witch Trial
Shell