Teen angst, all grown up. Michelle Markarian takes the stage. (AP Photo/WIlliam B. Plowman)
Karen Corday can laugh now at her old diary. (AP Photo/WIlliam B. Plowman)
Big jerk! A page from Karen Corday's diary. (AP Photo/WIlliam B. Plowman)

The jam-packed Boston lounge grows quiet as Brian Polak takes the stage.

The 33-year-old human resources employee confidently grabs the microphone and tells of a girl he was infatuated with in high school: "I wrote 50 poems about her," he says. "I numbered them."

Then, he reads from his journal.

"This first one is called 'Happy Like a Clown,'" he read. "You are the one I love the best / Your face picks me up when I'm down / I love you better than all the rest / You make me feel happy like a clown."

The crowd rumbles with laughter.

Embarrassing? Yes. But that's the point.

The event is Mortified, a comedy show where original authors read from their "teen angst artifacts" such as journals, letters, poems and lyrics. The highlights are now featured in a book, "Mortified: Real Words. Real People. Real Pathetic."

It's been called a cultural phenomenon and may be a sign of our confession-happy times -- after-all, teens now post their journals directly online instead of locking them up as those of Polak's generation did. Now it's time for 20- and 30-somethings to get in on the act.

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GETTING MORTIFIED

Mortified founder Dave Nadelberg came up with the idea in 2002 after digging up a love letter he wrote to a girl when he was 15.

"I never gave it to her, thankfully," says Nadelberg, 32. "I just started asking, "Who is this kid? I don't remember this guy."

With more than 50 shows in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Mortified movement has drawn interest from both boisterous performers and shy amateurs who want to share their experiences. Aspiring confessors audition with their journals for Mortified's producers about two weeks before the show.

Though Nadelberg says the show could be cathartic for both its performers and the audience, the primary goal is comedy. The group brags on its Web site that Mortified was created "all in the noble pursuit of self-degradation."

After 45-year-old Bostonian Michelle Markarian heard about Mortified, she started perusing her old journals.

"I thought, 'Oh my gosh, should I be in therapy?' It dragged up all that stuff up again," says Markarian, who read on stage about her trauma as she attempted to get numerous radio stations to play her favorites Beatles' song.

"I don't think it's going to help me get rid of teen angst, it's just going to humiliate me. It's an obsessive stupid piece."

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DREDGING UP PAIN

At the Boston show, the seven performers each have about 10 minutes to tell about boyfriends, girlfriends, crushes, friends and family. But Nadelberg says more serious topics, such as suicide and depression, arise as well.

Which brings us to the question: is this really something to laugh about?

"If it's something they read and there's not a lot of emotional charge now, that's OK," says Jerilyn Ross, president of the Silver Springs, Md.-based Anxiety Disorders Association of America. "But if someone is doing it as a therapeutic type of thing, they're much better off being in a controlled environment. ... It could open up a can of worms."

About 20 percent of teens suffer from bona-fide depression. But if there were a teen angst diagnosis, we'd all be sick.

Carrying around uncomfortable memories at an older age can be unhealthy, says Dr. Alexandra Barzvi, an assistant clinical professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University's Child Study Center. Laughing about it may be just what the doctor ordered.

"It's therapeutic to some extent for (the performers) and helpful to process it. It's very helpful to laugh about it. It's healthy to laugh at yourself, especially if you've overcome something," Barzvi says.

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LAUGHING IT OFF

Tonight, laughter fills the Paradise Lounge, one of the city's legendary rock clubs. The performers, apparently, aren't the only ones who could benefit from a giggle.

Sara Bynoe, the Vancouver, British Columbia-based author of "Teen Angst: A Celebration of REALLY BAD Poetry," says she doesn't take life as seriously since she compiled her teenage thoughts and realized how much trivial aspects of her life mattered when she was younger.

Polak, who describes his high school experience as "close to atrocious," says his journals were skeletons in a closet -- he never read or mentioned them to anyone. Somehow, reading them out loud allows him to embrace the awkwardness.

"Now I can laugh along with the audience," he says. "Now, I'm not truly embarrassed. You just have to get over it."

So we're back to Jocelyn, the girl of Polak's (not always positive) obsession. He concludes with the poem "Jocelyn is fat."

"Jocelyn is fat," he booms. "She sat on a rat / And that was the end of that."

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Find it online:

http://getmortified.com/

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asap contributor Laura-Claire Corson is a freelance writer based in Madison, Wis.

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