The comic is Palestinian, the jokes bawdy

The comic is Palestinian, the jokes bawdy
November 21st, 2006

ROYA HEYDARPOUR, THE NEW YORK TIMES

MAYSOON ZAYID grabbed her audience's attention immediately as she limped into the spotlight wearing a green T-shirt with a plunging neckline that advertised her one-woman show, "Little American Whore."

"For those of you who don't know me, I am a Palestinian-Muslim virgin with cerebral palsy from New Jersey," Ms. Zayid, 30, told the packed house recently at the Gotham Comedy Club in Chelsea at the fourth annual Arab-American Comedy Festival.

Women and men alike howled as she made raunchy jokes about the trials and tribulations of menstruation and sex for a Muslim woman. They chuckled when she talked about her father's resemblance to Saddam Hussein. "When they hang Saddam, I'm going to be like, 'Daddy!' " she said.

Ms. Zayid's road to comedy was a detour, as she started out wanting to be an actress. But after getting work as a contract extra in shows like "As the World Turns" and "Law & Order," it became clear that her career in television as a disabled and "not-so-skinny" woman was not going anywhere. She realized that many successful actresses who did not fit the typical look for television and film, like Roseanne Barr and Whoopi Goldberg, got their start in comedy.

So Ms. Zayid started doing stand-up in 1999, performing free in dive bars and taking early slots at comedy clubs all around New York City.

Her Palestinian parents were concerned at first. What if she had fallen into a dishonorable profession? Then, after seeing a story about her on Al Jazeera, the Arab cable network, they were relieved. "They saw I was legit and not wrapped around a pole," she said.

Ms. Zayid's popularity and schedule of appearances soared after the first Arab-American Comedy Festival, which she helped found, in 2003. Instead of working only on weekends, she performed in 40 cities in 3 nations in 3 months.

Although a lot of her material is about being Arab, her act is just as much about having cerebral palsy, which some in the audience do not immediately realize. She constantly trembles and the left side of her face sags. "People think I'm nervous or they think I'm drunk," she said.

Ms. Zayid, who has a home in Cliffside Park, N.J., recently returned from Hollywood, where she lived while working on developing her one-woman show. She hopes it may end up becoming a movie.

While the night at the Gotham club was full of jokes that are more easily understood by Arabs and Muslims, few performers spoke much Arabic on stage, except for Ms. Zayid.She ended with a joke that her father told her. "For those of you who don't speak Arabic -- find a friend," she said. The audience roared -- it was a dirty joke.