By Nick A. Zaino III Globe correspondent, Updated December 6, 2023, 4:50 p.m
Kenice Mobley knows the title of her new solo show, “Don’t Kill Yourself Yet,” which she brings to the Rockwell in Somerville, Friday, may cause her audience to worry. So she offers an affirmation to kick things off on a positive note. “Right off the top,” she says, “despite the content of this show and what it may suggest to you, I am OK. OK?”
Mobley deals with weighty subjects like depression, anxiety, mortality, and her recent stroke in the piece, but she wants people to know it’s funny, even light in places. That’s why she starts by talking about how, when all the other kids were playing “wedding” with their Barbies, she was playing “funeral.” And how, in college, she posted instructions on MySpace for her own funeral, including a dance number choreographed to a My Chemical Romance song.
“I do think bringing people in with lightness and silliness about a dark topic does set the stage for [the audience] to be able to come with you on the path to like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna get a little heavier here — still making jokes, still pointing out the silliness of this — but we are gonna get a little bit heavier,’ ” she says, speaking by Zoom from her New York City apartment.
In the stand-up act Mobley performs in clubs, she’s always been frank about matters like sex and relationships. But this new show is something different. Mobley grew up in Charlotte, N.C., but started her comedy career in Boston during her college years. She’s performing “Don’t Kill Yourself Yet” in the Boston area for the first time and may have friends in the audience who don’t know some of what she has gone through.
“It feels more intimate, and therefore more risky,” she says. “This is me saying I, in fact, do exist. These are some of my weaknesses. And these are the troubles that I go through. And, man, that it feels vulnerable.” She has felt that rush since the first time she performed the show earlier this year. “This is a little scary. And I like it. But it is a little scary.”
