But it enacts a total, almost surreal breakdown of meaning and performance, and is painfully funny.

Pam finds this painfully funny to watch.

The play is painfully funny.

The monologues were also often, for the record, painfully funny.

They say "There's an uncomfortable quality to a lot of [her characters] that's painfully funny."

Entertainment Weekly said, "As poignant as it is painfully funny."

The truth has been present on every page of this complex and painfully funny novel: there is no forgiveness, no forgetting.

In a painfully funny moment, Ms. Baye's character, who is nervous, starts talking about her longtime quest for a hairy man.

Him and Her is painfully funny.

Not so with the painfully funny "Freaks and Geeks."