hing happens in you when someone you have seen on television appears on a stage. This is just given and not interesting. But something joyous and profound happens when someone you have seen on television appears unannounced on a stage and does standup to you. This is a common enough occurrence at not just the Upright Citizens Brigade theater but other venues around the country that it becomes part of the experience—prognosticating with friends in line pre-show about who might show up, Tweeting about it during or after the show so’s to be the first to report the news. The fun one has or does not have listening to funny people becomes tied to this level of access and intimacy.
I’ll have to come back to this tomorrow. Ditto the sets by Al Madrigal and Brendon Walsh.
Last night Judah Friedlander and Aziz Ansari did walk-on sets. The joyousness and profundity came not just from the fact of seeing live and in person what you’ve only seen distantly on TV. It comes from what you get to see, an inversion of celebrity identity that happens right before us.
On Parks and Recreation Aziz Ansari plays Tom Haverford, a goofball wanna-be lothario. There is overlap, to be sure, between Tom and what I as an audience member feel I know of Aziz, but Tom is not real. Aziz is, and when he came on stage last night I felt joy about getting access not just to his real-lifeness, but his personal authenticity, his own direct voice. Whereas Tom Haverford’s voiced by a whole team of writers. So what’s been constructed to form Ansari’s public identity gets inverted on the standup stage. The public’s made private (or privater.) It’s like the difference in feeling I get between a fictional narrator and a nonfictional one.
Judah Friedlander, though, inverts this inversion. His character on 30 Rock, Frank Rossitano, is infinitely realer and more authentic than Friedlander’s standup persona, who wears a T-shirt reading WORLD’S GREATEST and does ironic schtick about being great at karate and bedding many women. It’s flat[1] material. Nearly all crowd work. And it killed.
How did it kill? More than anyone I’ve seen, Friedlander is lightning-fast in reacting to audience’s questions, and he’s deeply committed in these quick bits to his character. In other words, he’s like a one-man improv group, maybe the best one in the country. But the joy of seeing in person the person behind what one’s seen on television is lessened by the tenacity with which Friedlander sticks to his schtick. He’d never appear on stage in a cardigan and a tote bag, for instance, half -Lemon’d from stress. He’d never speak honestly to Jenna about how phony she is and why. He’d never cow to his mother.
On TV, Rossitano appears to us as a far realer person than Friedlander allows himself to be perceived on stage. Ansari’s act stands in contrast here—he does a lot of work on stage to separate his self from his TV character. Anxieties about dating and cohabitation, for instance, that Haverford would never have. Also lots and lots of sincere crowd work. Friedlander also works to separate himself from his character, but he does it by pushing us away from his self and toward this performed inauthenticity. Somehow it feels just as intimate.
There are more things to be said about cameos and how they operate in theatre, say, or on television. I keep coming back to rock shows, because this is what I used to stay up past 11pm on a Monday night to catch when I was the age of most of last night’s audience (which is a topic for a much longer post than I have the time for now). Bands require guitar techs and drum kits and set up time and three-to-five-minute songs to move you. It’s way easier for a beloved comic to get up for 10 minutes and put on an amazing show. It’s so cheap: all you need is a mic and a bottle of water. No wonder kids are staying up past 11pm on a Monday night to catch it.
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[[]]Possibly outmoded, too. One joke last night was a Chuck Norris joke, but without transcribing it for those folks eager to see him I’ll say it might be the best Chuck Norris joke I’ve heard, in how by disparaging the hell out of Chuck Norris the man he’s able also to disparage Chuck Norris jokes themselves. Hence possibly.[[]]
- hing happens in you when someone you have seen on television appears on a stage. This is just given and not interesting. But something joyous and profound happens when someone you have seen on television appears unannounced on a stage and does standup to you. This is a common enough occurrence at not just the Upright Citizens Brigade theater but other venues around the country that it becomes part of the experience—prognosticating with friends in line pre-show about who might show up, Tweeting about it during or after the show so’s to be the first to report the news. The fun one has or does not have listening to funny people becomes tied to this level of access and intimacy.
I’ll have to come back to this tomorrow. Ditto the sets by Al Madrigal and Brendon Walsh.
Last night Judah Friedlander and Aziz Ansari did walk-on sets. The joyousness and profundity came not just from the fact of seeing live and in person what you’ve only seen distantly on TV. It comes from what you get to see, an inversion of celebrity identity that happens right before us.
On Parks and Recreation Aziz Ansari plays Tom Haverford, a goofball wanna-be lothario. There is overlap, to be sure, between Tom and what I as an audience member feel I know of Aziz, but Tom is not real. Aziz is, and when he came on stage last night I felt joy about getting access not just to his real-lifeness, but his personal authenticity, his own direct voice. Whereas Tom Haverford’s voiced by a whole team of writers. So what’s been constructed to form Ansari’s public identity gets inverted on the standup stage. The public’s made private (or privater.) It’s like the difference in feeling I get between a fictional narrator and a nonfictional one.
Judah Friedlander, though, inverts this inversion. His character on 30 Rock, Frank Rossitano, is infinitely realer and more authentic than Friedlander’s standup persona, who wears a T-shirt reading WORLD’S GREATEST and does ironic schtick about being great at karate and bedding many women. It’s flat{{1}} material. Nearly all crowd work. And it killed.
How did it kill? More than anyone I’ve seen, Friedlander is lightning-fast in reacting to audience’s questions, and he’s deeply committed in these quick bits to his character. In other words, he’s like a one-man improv group, maybe the best one in the country. But the joy of seeing in person the person behind what one’s seen on television is lessened by the tenacity with which Friedlander sticks to his schtick. He’d never appear on stage in a cardigan and a tote bag, for instance, half -Lemon’d from stress. He’d never speak honestly to Jenna about how phony she is and why. He’d never cow to his mother.
On TV, Rossitano appears to us as a far realer person than Friedlander allows himself to be perceived on stage. Ansari’s act stands in contrast here—he does a lot of work on stage to separate his self from his TV character. Anxieties about dating and cohabitation, for instance, that Haverford would never have. Also lots and lots of sincere crowd work. Friedlander also works to separate himself from his character, but he does it by pushing us away from his self and toward this performed inauthenticity. Somehow it feels just as intimate.
There are more things to be said about cameos and how they operate in theatre, say, or on television. I keep coming back to rock shows, because this is what I used to stay up past 11pm on a Monday night to catch when I was the age of most of last night’s audience (which is a topic for a much longer post than I have the time for now). Bands require guitar techs and drum kits and set up time and three-to-five-minute songs to move you. It’s way easier for a beloved comic to get up for 10 minutes and put on an amazing show. It’s so cheap: all you need is a mic and a bottle of water. No wonder kids are staying up past 11pm on a Monday night to catch it.
===
[[]]Possibly outmoded, too. One joke last night was a Chuck Norris joke, but without transcribing it for those folks eager to see him I’ll say it might be the best Chuck Norris joke I’ve heard, in how by disparaging the hell out of Chuck Norris the man he’s able also to disparage Chuck Norris jokes themselves. Hence possibly↵
interesting article. a lot of thought put into it by you. (kayfabe alert if u choose to read further) – i just want to say one thing regarding any chuck norris types jokes you said that i do. for the record – i’m 43. Have been doing stand-up almost every night since 1989 when i was 19. the chuck norris joke books are not written by anyone in particular. they were started a few years ago by a guy who was 20 or 21. he started a website where people just submit jokes. several of those jokes are my jokes with just the name changed to “chuck”. so, I was doing world champion themed material YEARS before the chuck norris jokes surfaced. Now i’m not constantly repeating old jokes of mine. But just want to set the record straight that i did not see the chuck norris jokes a few years back and think “i should do jokes like that”. ask any comic who knows me – i work very hard & am very careful not to do anything like any other comic. now, in my stand-up act i don’t do just world champion themed jokes. and the world champion persona of mine continues to grow and change. i think the night u saw me, my set had about 25-30% of world champion themed jokes (or chuck norris types jokes as you referred to it). and there were many other types of material that i did – such as presidential & europe vs use material. and yes, i’ve had to write some jokes about me besting chuck norris to combat the fact that chuck norris jokes had a massive following & to try and show people that my act precedes and outgrows those jokes. the world champion is always evolving. anyway – email me if u have any questions. i’m on 2 hours sleep. hope what i wrote makes sense. thx. judah