2025 Audience Reviews

Company: Theatre on the Rocks
Show: A Good Cancer to Have
Venue: Mixed Blood

Laughing, Learning, and Being Alive

My expectations of this show were high because of Sweere’s Fringe performance last year with “A Horse Walks Out Onto a Stage and Dies.” In that show, also a solo-comedy, Sweere wrestled with what it meant to be alive and find worth in the midst of tragedy. Those themes are repeated in “A Good Cancer to Have,” and are developed further using Sweere’s raw personal experience. His brilliance comes out in the whole performance, especially his writing. The deepest truths of this show are buried in the punchlines he delivers with such playful yet powerful candor. Sweere hides nothing from the audience. He keeps no secrets as he allows us to hold his story in our hands. Another element Sweere has added to this year’s show was chemistry. Sweere’s wife, Leah, creates an anchor for him as an actor and character alike. She echoes the role that she has played in his actual life, that of his chief caregiver, and if you pay close attention to the time they share together on stage, their love is unmistakable. This is, after all, the story of their love as well. The show would not work without the newly-married pair performing so seamlessly together. I was both blessed and impressed by this incredible work of art. I’m excited to see what new story Sweere will have for us next year. The festival is fortunate to have come across someone so uniquely gifted as him.