‘Being Robin’ Successfully Walks A Difficult Tightrope

Image Courtesy of Prime Video

By Dean Robbins

Roger Kabler, an actor and comedian, believed that the spirit of Robin Williams possessed him in 2014. He turned this feeling into a successful tour of one-man comedy shows. This is a true story. Kabler’s documentary on his experiences Being Robin is a surprisingly raw look at the power of celebrity and the challenges of mental illness.

Kabler began to build a promising comedic acting career in the 1990s with television roles, including a leading role in the one-season sitcom Rhythm & Blues, and an animated voice role in two of the Brave Little Toaster sequels. However, he found the Hollywood life to be too much due mainly to an endlessly rabid industry and a struggle with Bipolar disorder. He left Tinseltown to become a painter in a rural town. And then in 2014, Kabler’s idol Robin Williams passed away. 

Williams became almost another persona inside the mind of Kabler. He would go into long, chaotic impressions of the Good Will Hunting actor. As it is recounted in the film, Williams would often literally “take over”. Eventually, it decided to turn his grief into a successful show. 

There was a fear that Being Robin would be a self-indulgent and delusional look at Kabler and his stage show. Luckily, the documentary is often painfully introspective. We see him at his worst, in what appears to be both recreation and video from the original event.
Being Robin is now available on-demand on Amazon Video.