{"id":6550,"date":"2026-05-19T20:10:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T23:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.twisitheatreblog.com\/?p=6550"},"modified":"2026-05-19T20:54:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T23:54:32","slug":"marty-life-is-short-takes-audiences-into-martin-shorts-tight-knit-community-of-love-laughter-unshakable-canadianess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twisitheatreblog.com\/?p=6550","title":{"rendered":"Marty, Life is Short Takes Audiences Into Martin Short\u2019s Tight-Knit Community of Love, Laughter & Unshakable Canadianess"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The moments in Lawrence Kasdan\u2019s documentary Marty, Life is Short,<\/em> which explores the life and career of Canadian comedic wonder Martin Short, that I think are the most engrossing, especially for fellow Canadians, are the distinctively late 80s and 90s home video footage both inside his house and at his beloved cottage in Snug Harbour, Ontario, where he is often filming his family and friends. We hear his voice from behind the camera calling out to his wife, Nancy, and we really do see her through his adoring eyes. When I was growing up I spent a lot of time in my grandmother\u2019s tiny World War II era prefab house in Halifax and so often we were in the same room together for hours, but if I was out of her sight for too long I would hear her hesitant voice call my name and when I called back \u201cwhat?\u201d she would sometimes say, \u201cOh, nothing. I just wanted to be sure of you.\u201d The act of filming Nancy in these candid, prosaic moments seems to me to be a bit akin to him just wanting to be sure of her. Nancy Dolman Short died August 21, 2010. She was 58 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much has been written about this dichotomy of Martin Short\u2019s life that has been so marked by both immense tragedy and loss, and incredible joie de vivre, laughter, playfulness, and gratitude. Kasdan chooses to focus a lot on Short\u2019s marriage to his soulmate Nancy and how strong their relationship was throughout their 30 years of marriage, while also touching on how the deaths of Short\u2019s brother, David (1962), mother (1968), and father (1970) have shaped him both as performer and as a person. Although Kasdan doesn\u2019t linger long on Short\u2019s parents, Olive and Charles, or on David, we are given enough insights to see that even though Short wasn\u2019t given a lot of time with them, who they were in life determined who he would grow up to be. As much as their deaths influenced his trajectory, their lives left a much more enduring legacy. Olive, Charles, and David do not just live on in Martin they also live on in his older siblings Michael, Brian, and Nora, and we get a sense in the documentary of how connected Short is with his siblings, and that they have helped to keep him very connected to his roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We get a little glimpse through an audio recording of the Martin Short Show,<\/em> an elaborate extravaganza that little Marty would put on for himself by himself in the attic of the house where he grew up in Hamilton. Especially for those familiar with the characters that he played on SCTV, like Jackie Rogers Jr.<\/a>, it is clear that from a very early age he was drawn to emulating the divas of the stage and ebullient theatricality. Short mentions that everyone in his family was funny, and as the youngest he was essentially just trying to keep up. We see and hear this dynamic with his siblings performing for one another, each trying to make all the others laugh. Their dad was born in Ireland and seemed to have that distinctive Irish mix of wit and melancholy, which came out in both his edgy humour and propensity for singing. What struck me most of all was how Short characterized his upbringing as having instilled such a sense of confidence and security in him that it gave him the audacity of spirit to believe that he could succeed as a performer. We see a moment of this in a story he tells about his eldest brother David, who was fourteen when he was born. He says that when David was nearing the end of High School and coming home late from parties with his friends, early in the morning as a preschooler he would wake up and go into David\u2019s room, and David would not only let him crawl into his bed, but he created a game for them to play that both created a playful bond between them, but also sneakily allowed David to fall back to sleep. You can see that it was from this place of feeling belonging, tenderness, safety, and acceptance that young Martin Short grew up to become someone who relished in collaborative arts in sketch comedy and films, and his partnership with Steve Martin, and who knew this baseline of safety that allowed him to be courageous, both in his work and in his life in general, and take big leaps of faith that continue to pay off in spades.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another aspect of the documentary that stood out to me was the way that Short\u2019s long career was presented. Of course Kasdan centres Short\u2019s big break, notably as part of an ensemble, in both the iconic 1972 production of Godspell <\/em>in Toronto, and in Canada\u2019s beloved sketch show SCTV<\/em>. There is a documentary about that production of Godspell<\/em> directed by Nick Davis slated to be released in September, so Kasdan doesn\u2019t go into a lot of detail about this time in Short\u2019s life, beyond that everyone in the cast got along so well, and that this is where he met his then girlfriend Gilda Radner, and then after their final break up Short started dating Radner’s understudy- and that was Nancy. I had no idea what an extraordinary singing voice Nancy had. She was extremely talented in her own right, and it was her career, actually, that first brought Short down to California from Ontario. I didn\u2019t learn a lot of new information about Godspell <\/em>or SCTV<\/em> from this documentary, but I was struck by how much the documentary focused on the string of box office failures that Short appeared in, beginning with cult favourite \u00a1Three Amigos! <\/em>(1986), and extending through the 1990s. In fact, Short says that what his nurturing upbringing provided for him was, ultimately, the \u201cconfidence to fail,\u201d and thus to have the resilience needed to continue to be adaptable, and to not become so discouraged that he would quit- or that he would see the film\u2019s failure as a reflection of his own self worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had just turned seven when Father of the Bride<\/em> came out in 1991, and I don\u2019t know exactly how long it was between when it came out on VHS and when I saw it for the first time, but I was exactly the film\u2019s target demographic. I loved everything about it, and Franck Eggelhoffer was my introduction to Martin Short. When I was in Grade 10 or 11 I found the Marvin Hamlisch\/Neil Simon musical version of The Goodbye Girl<\/em>, based on the 1977 film of the same name, directed by Michael Kidd. I was the sort of Broadway nerd teenager who loved everything Bernadette Peters did by default, but I really fell in love with Martin Short as Elliot Garfield, who sings \u201cPaula (An Improvised Love Song\u201d), which, like the title suggests, is written to sound improvised and needs a very specific comedic timing in order to not sound hokey. Garfield has Short\u2019s legendary frenetic energy, and it comes through like a freight train even in the cast album. It\u2019s mesmerizing. The show was not a success when it opened on Broadway in March of 1993, but as a teenager just listening to the album I sure as hell couldn\u2019t conceived of why. Similar to John Mulaney who speaks in the documentary about the cultural impact of \u00a1Three Amigos! <\/em>(also, surprisingly, not a hit when it was released), and how it has inspired an entire generation of comedians, despite its critical failure, whatever problems The Goodbye Girl <\/em>had onstage don\u2019t lessen how enjoyable the album is to listen to, and the chemistry that you can feel between him and Peters. From my vantage point, and I think Mulaney\u2019s as well, this failure that Short speaks about working through and overcoming has been largely overshadowed by his massive successes, and our implicit understanding that he is one of the mainstay stars of his generation. Beyond The Goodbye Girl<\/em> as a teenager I knew him as Jiminy Glick, then Leo Bloom in The Producers<\/em>, and later, of course, for his tours with Steve Martin. It would be easy to do a documentary about Short and not even mention the ventures that didn\u2019t work, but I know Kasdan included these because it allows the audience to see Short\u2019s ethos. He says that it isn\u2019t just about success or failure, about a windfall of money or not, it is also about what the experience was like working on the project. \u201cWas it fun?\u201d he asks. \u201cWas it creative? Was it a good hang?\u201d We learn so much through our failures, and it is also important to remember that a commercial failure doesn\u2019t mean a personal failure, or a waste of time. In a time when social media allows celebrities and influencers alike to sanitize everything about themselves in attempt to present a veneer of manufactured perfection it is refreshing to see Martin Short be so frank about the realities of being an actor, even at the highest levels of Hollywood.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I found the most <\/em>heartwarming about this documentary is the way that Martin Short continues to show up as friend, and how so many of his friendships have stretched back to before his big American successes, and to the very earliest parts of his Hollywood career. Eugene Levy, Short says, is his oldest and dearest friend. It was Levy who convinced him to audition for that fateful production of Godspell<\/em>. As with the home movies of Nancy at the Shorts\u2019 home in California when their children were small, we see home movies from the cottage on Sturgeon Lake just north of Kwartha Lakes in Ontario, where Eugene Levy, Catherine O\u2019Hara, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Goldie Hawn, and Andrea Martin are there with their partners and all their kids doing all the activities that we consider to be quintessential Canadian cottage life: grilling, lawn games, boating, and swimming. There is nothing glamorous about any of this footage- even the cottage itself, while, of course, not everyone has access to this kind of waterfront property in this part of Ontario, it doesn\u2019t seem extravagant like you might expect from an A-list star. For a Canadian it feels like Short and his friends are partaking in an experience that is nearly identical to one that you yourself have had, albeit your friends might not be quite as funny. Even the footage from his Boxing Day parties in California, the same A-list guest list, where Andrea Martin jokingly bemoans the fact that before you arrive you have to prepare a \u201cfucking song to sing\u201d doesn\u2019t inherently look like a Hollywood party. My first thought was that Dan Levy must have taken a bit of inspiration from the performance aspect of the parties when he conceived of the Roses’ Christmas party flashback <\/a>in the holiday episode of Schitt\u2019s Creek<\/em>, but, at the same time, the Shorts couldn\u2019t be more different from Moira and Johnny Rose. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a moment where Steve Martin becomes emotional speaking about Nancy\u2019s death where I also welled up with tears, and Martin says, \u201chis true half is gone. How will he be funny without her.\u201d I have heard Martin Short in interviews speak about how sometimes fans will complain about how he and Steve Martin perpetually rib, tease, and roast each other, and how rare it is to see a straightforward genuine moment between them without it being immediately undercut by one or the other. Short often says that this misses the point, and that the love and care they have for one another is inherently in their banter, and I think that\u2019s true, but for those who want to see Steve Martin wear his heart on his sleeve without a punchline at all, it\u2019s here in this poignant moment. It is a testament to Martin Short\u2019s kind, generous heart, and the depth of his capacity as a friend and a community member in the industry that he and Steve Martin are able to go onstage and delight audiences with the playful jocular dynamic they have- and even more so that Short is able to sustain a character like Jiminy Glick, who relishes in being both obnoxious and deliberately insulting when he interviews the stars. This character doesn\u2019t work unless the person underneath it is rooted in the antithesis of malice.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawrence Kasdan is friends with Martin Short, and during their interview segments together, Short sometimes will reference the unseen and unheard presence behind the camera directly, and this further gives us the audience the sense that our perspective into this life is through the eyes of a friend. Indeed, all the friends who are interviewed seem to see the subject in variations on the same way, as an exceptional talent, a devoted and adoring husband, father, and brother, the hilarious kindhearted glue holding their friend group together, and an iconic and proud Canadian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film is dedicated to Catherine O\u2019Hara and Katherine Short, who both passed away between the time that the documentary was made and when it was released. There are interview segments with O\u2019Hara looking vibrant and healthy, and a few shots of Katherine as a child, and, of course, both take on an additional weight and are tinged with sadness that isn\u2019t inherent to Kasdan\u2019s filmmaking. With all the loss that Short has already endured, it feels profoundly unfair to think of him and his family grieving anew. It is obvious, though, from Marty, Life is Short<\/em>, that he has one hell of a community to rally around him and surround him with that foundation of love, support, laughter, and \u201cthe opportunity to have a blast\u201d to help carry him through the dark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marty, Life is Short<\/em> is streaming now on Netflix. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canadian Theatre Criticism is an essential part of a healthy and thriving theatre community. It helps theatre companies find new audiences for their shows, deepens audiences\u2019 engagement with local artists and the work being created in their communities, and it is one of the best ways to preserve a snapshot of an ephemeral art form for future generations of theatre lovers.\u00a0TWISI relies on support from its Subscribers<\/a>, folks like you who care about the survival of local and independent arts coverage. Please consider\u00a0becoming a Subscriber today<\/a>, or\u00a0click here for more information<\/a>. Thank you so much for supporting TWISI.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    The moments in Lawrence Kasdan\u2019s documentary Marty, Life is Short,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4671],"tags":[3723,4574,8935,3722,8933,3551,8931,4063,3550,3435,3724,8945,7841,8942,8941,8928,5379,4456,8940,8934,8930,8939,8938,8936,8932,3417,8937,4242,8929,5535,8944,8943],"class_list":["post-6550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-andrea-martin","tag-bernadette-peters","tag-brian-short","tag-catherine-ohara","tag-charles-short","tag-dan-levy","tag-david-short","tag-documentary","tag-eugene-levy","tag-film","tag-gilda-radner","tag-goldie-hawn","tag-hamilton","tag-jiminy-glick","tag-john-mulaney","tag-lawrence-kasdan","tag-martin-short","tag-marvin-hamlisch","tag-michael-kidd","tag-michael-short","tag-nancy-short","tag-neil-simon","tag-nick-davis","tag-nora-short","tag-olive-short","tag-ontario","tag-sctv","tag-second-city","tag-snug-harbour","tag-steve-martin","tag-steven-spielberg","tag-tom-hanks"],"yoast_head":"\nMarty, Life is Short Takes Audiences Into Martin Short\u2019s Tight-Knit Community of Love, Laughter & Unshakable Canadianess - The Way I See It Theatre & Music Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The moments in Lawrence Kasdan\u2019s documentary Marty, Life is Short, which explores the life and career of Canadian comedic wonder Martin Short, that I think are the most engrossing, especially for fellow Canadians, are the distinctively late 80s and 90s home video footage both inside his house and at his beloved cottage in Snug Harbour, Ontario, where he is often filming his family and friends. We hear his voice from behind the camera calling out to his wife, Nancy, and we really do see her through his adoring eyes. When I was growing up I spent a lot of time in my grandmother\u2019s tiny World War II era prefab house in Halifax and so often we were in the same room together for hours, but if I was out of her sight for too long I would hear her hesitant voice call my name and when I called back \u201cwhat?\u201d she would sometimes say, \u201cOh, nothing. I just wanted to be sure of you.\u201d The act of filming Nancy in these candid, prosaic moments seems to me to be a bit akin to him just wanting to be sure of her. Nancy Dolman Short died August 21, 2010. She was 58 years old.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.twisitheatreblog.com\/?p=6550\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marty, Life is Short Takes Audiences Into Martin Short\u2019s Tight-Knit Community of Love, Laughter & Unshakable Canadianess - The Way I See It Theatre & Music Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The moments in Lawrence Kasdan\u2019s documentary Marty, Life is Short, which explores the life and career of Canadian comedic wonder Martin Short, that I think are the most engrossing, especially for fellow Canadians, are the distinctively late 80s and 90s home video footage both inside his house and at his beloved cottage in Snug Harbour, Ontario, where he is often filming his family and friends. 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We hear his voice from behind the camera calling out to his wife, Nancy, and we really do see her through his adoring eyes. When I was growing up I spent a lot of time in my grandmother\u2019s tiny World War II era prefab house in Halifax and so often we were in the same room together for hours, but if I was out of her sight for too long I would hear her hesitant voice call my name and when I called back \u201cwhat?\u201d she would sometimes say, \u201cOh, nothing. I just wanted to be sure of you.\u201d The act of filming Nancy in these candid, prosaic moments seems to me to be a bit akin to him just wanting to be sure of her. Nancy Dolman Short died August 21, 2010. She was 58 years old.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.twisitheatreblog.com\/?p=6550","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Marty, Life is Short Takes Audiences Into Martin Short\u2019s Tight-Knit Community of Love, Laughter & Unshakable Canadianess - The Way I See It Theatre & Music Blog","og_description":"The moments in Lawrence Kasdan\u2019s documentary Marty, Life is Short, which explores the life and career of Canadian comedic wonder Martin Short, that I think are the most engrossing, especially for fellow Canadians, are the distinctively late 80s and 90s home video footage both inside his house and at his beloved cottage in Snug Harbour, Ontario, where he is often filming his family and friends. 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