Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Mike Birbiglia and Neal Brennan’s stand-up comedy acts at the Lynn Redgrave prove the legitimacy and potency of the form

• By drediman
• April 8, 2016
• No Comments

Currently playing in repertory down at the Lynn Redgrave Theater is an outstanding pair of solo shows in the guise of stand-up comedy acts: Mike Birbiglia’s Thank God for Jokes and Neal Brennan’s 3 MICS. What these two very talented and very funny men prove with their exceedingly well-received shows is the legitimacy of stand-up comedy as a type of performance that demands the same level of craft and skill as any play. The rewards audiences reap are unique and bountiful – Indeed, an excellent comic’s ability to give form to the shadings and nuances of the human condition is as potent as any great playwright.

Mr. Birbiglia’s Thank God for Jokes (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) is not only a barrel of laughs, it’s also an exceedingly well-crafted piece of storytelling with some really smart things to say about the nature of the joke – its double-edged quality, why we make them, and why it engages us on an intrinsically human level. His laidback everyman delivery belies his gift as a monologist of the first order (I would even put him in the same rank as a Spaulding Gray or a Mike Daisey). What’s particularly astonishing about Thank God for Jokes is the effortless way it assembles seemingly disparate threads – the main one being his notorious hosting work at the Gotham Independent Film Awards in 2012 – into a seamless, comprehensive whole. Oh, and if you grew up Roman Catholic as I did, you’ll find his re-casting of a well-known hymn to be quite the scene-stealer. Let’s just say that Jesus Christ would not be laughing.

Perhaps the darker and more melancholy of the two shows – but no less hilarious – is Mr. Brennan’s 3 MICS (RECOMMENDED), which in large part deals with his bouts with depression and an unfixable relationship with his father. Mr. Brennan is best-known as co-writing “Chappell’s Show” with none other than Dave Chappelle. And while it can be argued that his skills as a storyteller aren’t quite on the level of Mr. Birbiglia’s, he delivers his lines with an interesting blend self-deprecation and quiet confidence that works especially well with his later night audiences. The show isn’t a total downer; Mr. Brennan, also spends much of the evening spouting a random collage of cryptic and often absurdly amusing one-liners – as if trying to illustrate the arbitrariness of life – as well as your standard-issue stand-up comedy fare. Suffice to say Mr. Brennan and his material are at its most compelling when he approaches Beckett territory.

MIKE BIRBIGLIA: THANK GOD FOR JOKES
Off-Broadway, Play/Stand-up Comedy
Lynn Redgrave Theater at Culture Project
1 hour, 25 minutes (without an intermission)
Through May 29

NEAL BRENNAN: 3 MICS
Off-Broadway, Play/Stand-up Comedy
Lynn Redgrave Theater at Culture Project
1 hour, 15 minutes (without an intermission)
Through April 16