Louis CK
Thursday October 20 at The Carpenter Center
As a young comedian, Louis CK struggled to achieve a personal sense of accomplishment. It wasn’t until, after 15 years as a comedian, he took a moment to reflect on the craft of comedy icon George Carlin that it all began to make sense for him. He learned to develop an act that he would throw away after a year, and continued doing this year in and year out. As a result, the material that surrounded his act would eventually have to come from a deeper and darker place internally.
With this regimen in place, opportunities began to come his way. He worked alongside Chris Rock on projects that ranged from directing and writing Pootie Tang to writing for Rock’s variety program The Chris Rock Show. He was eventually offered a chance at developing a live-studio audience sitcom for HBO entitled Lucky Louie. Although this series never really went far, his stand-up was gaining more and more notoriety. His modest success inevitably led to the FX network offering him a chance to do another television program. This time around, it was a show centered on an exaggerated version of himself. The situations that occur in the show are akin to subject matter he mentions in his stand-up, but he takes liberties to bring his dramatic intuition into the proceedings. The show, Louie, is his most ambitious and acclaimed success to date. Considering his workload as producer, writer, actor and director on the show, it’s unbelievable that he still finds time to make the rounds on the comedy circuit.
Louis CK
Thursday October 20 at The Carpenter Center
As a young comedian, Louis CK struggled to achieve a personal sense of accomplishment. It wasn’t until, after 15 years as a comedian, he took a moment to reflect on the craft of comedy icon George Carlin that it all began to make sense for him. He learned to develop an act that he would throw away after a year, and continued doing this year in and year out. As a result, the material that surrounded his act would eventually have to come from a deeper and darker place internally.
With this regimen in place, opportunities began to come his way. He worked alongside Chris Rock on projects that ranged from directing and writing Pootie Tang to writing for Rock’s variety program The Chris Rock Show. He was eventually offered a chance at developing a live-studio audience sitcom for HBO entitled Lucky Louie. Although this series never really went far, his stand-up was gaining more and more notoriety. His modest success inevitably led to the FX network offering him a chance to do another television program. This time around, it was a show centered on an exaggerated version of himself. The situations that occur in the show are akin to subject matter he mentions in his stand-up, but he takes liberties to bring his dramatic intuition into the proceedings. The show, Louie, is his most ambitious and acclaimed success to date. Considering his workload as producer, writer, actor and director on the show, it’s unbelievable that he still finds time to make the rounds on the comedy circuit.
On his current tour, he stopped in Richmond, Virginia at the Carpenter Theatre. The beautiful interior may be designed to accommodate orchestral and theatrical performances. Yet, there was something about the general feel of the theatre that reminded me of comedy of the past. If you look at the performers who have graced the stage of the more famous but similarly designed Carnegie Hall, it would come as no surprise that comedy has found a home there, with performances by comedians including Bill Cosby, Lewis Black, Aziz Ansari, Lenny Bruce, Groucho Marx and even George Carlin himself. Where this caliber of comedy is concerned, CK not only fits in effortlessly–he may be one of the best currently working.
CK’s performance was raw and unrelenting. Within moments of gracing the stage, he commented on the absurdity of tall cans of Miller Lite and Yuengling filling the hands of most patrons in the concert hall. This eventually led into a short diatribe about how nowhere else in the country is referred to by their region in the way that “The South” is. That alone insinuates a historical penchant for horrific reflection that is unique to the southern regions of the United States.
His set progressed well from the trends and topics found in his last recorded performance, Hilarious. He had further observations regarding his constant evolution as a parent, which included a deliberate hatred of one of his daughter’s classmates, as well as Clifford The Big Red Dog’s ever-expanding catalog of literature. In a fateful trip camping with his two daughters, he created a hypothetical situation in which they were attacked by a hoard of bears, which would end in CK having to call his ex-wife to tell her the good news. Outside of his parenting, he spent a decent amount of time considering the sadness attached to being single at forty-four. As he put it, the best thing about it is that he gets to look forward to dying alone. There is no stone that stays unturned when CK takes the stage–nor should there be.
My experiences seeing stand-up comedy are limited. I’ve spent a great number of hours listening to recorded sets, and have heard moments when hecklers engage a performer. I have seen instances of this in Patton Oswalt’s 222, as well as David Cross’s Let America Laugh, but I have never been in a room when this has occurred live. The reason I mention this is that, at any moment where CK’s set felt raw or harsh enough to potentially incite the crowd, the way in which he pulled all the pieces together demonstrated the mark of a true comedy mastermind. If he made a joke at the expense of infants, for example, it all fit into a genuine purpose for the story he was telling. It was quite outstanding to see how one man could work an audience. From being overcome by contagious laughter at one moment, CK would proceed with utter finesse that, at the next moment, quieted the audience to a reserved, attentive bunch.
After ninety minutes, consisting of a full set and a short encore, CK called it a night. In the encore, he berated himself for starting to smoke again, while considering a world where lions were let loose to kill off the meek in the most Darwinian sense. His energy left the room in high spirits. To my understanding, the performance in Richmond was one of many leading up to yet another new album that he intends to do, featuring the material he performed on this tour. In light of his unprecedented talent, it is remarkable that CK remains one of the hardest-working comedians in the business. There must eventually come a day when CK will have to slow down or, as he joked, that his show will get cancelled. With that thought in mind, I will take all that I can get from him now.
