Why We Laugh and the Rarity of Female Comics

Right, and I've spent some time thinking about trust. Like, I actually think that the only true natural resource is trust; that if people trust each other, they can make the desert bloom. You know, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely the case. And comedy is an endeavor that's predicated on a tremendous amount of trust, right? Because the audience has to trust the comedian, and the comedian has to trust the audience.

I mean, one of the things I've learned to do— you tell me about this for you— before I go out on stage, I always remind myself that the people that are in the audience— this might be easier for me. I think it's more true for my audience for a variety of reasons— they're on my side. And as long as I'm grateful that they're there and I'm communicating honestly, everybody is aiming at the same thing.

Now, I know in a comedy situation it's more complex because there's going to be cynics in the audience, you know, more. But like, what's your attitude toward your audience? Do you think— how do you conceive of your audience and how did you learn that?

Well, you know, I've been a comic for almost 40 years, so you learn it by trial and error and by going in front of different kinds of audiences and trying the same thing to see how it will work in front of this specific group until it works everywhere. So you know it's trial and error, but it's so many other things.

Like, you know, you could tell a joke and if you don't do the right rhythm of the joke or have the right inflection, it won't work. So it's like so many things that are combined in it. But I think what I've learned is when the audience knows or trusts that you are having fun and that you're enjoying it, and yeah, that you have gratitude that they've come there to see you and they love you, then you can't help but love them back.

You know, I mean, already love them because they're your fans and they keep you alive. You know, and there is a tethering between me and my fans, and I suppose every other comic might have that same view. I don't know, but it's a tethering to reality and to the best in humankind.

They want— you know how Virginia Woolf said, the job of the writer is to put the severed parts together? Right? I think she wrote that in "Three Guineas," but one of my favorite books. But anyway, I always think of comedy like that because we're putting the severed parts together that other people may not see.

And um, that's mostly what we do— things that seem disparate ideas, but then when you really look at them under a microscope, they're very connected, and people are like, "Oh, yeah, right, right, right! That's an insight."

Yeah, yeah, that drawing of connection.

Yeah, and once you do that and they appreciate that it's well thought out, definitely thought out, and then they're kind of like, "Well, I thought that way too. There's that too, I think that way too, but I couldn't say that way or it didn't occur to me in that way, but you gave words to something that was like vague and spinning around in my head. You gave me the building blocks for that."

So, you know, it's just a lot of love. It's just really a lot of love. And, you know, it's just such a great positive energy thing to be able to affect that and to watch it. People don't— people don't often, I know, don't hear them talk a lot about being on stage.

I mean, we talk about some stuff like, you know, doing a great set or killing or, you know, having a good one or bombing or whatever, but don't talk about that relationship that you're building— this beautiful relationship.

It is so spiritual to watch people get it, to be the person in the area—that's fun!

Yeah, yeah, that's so fun. Well, so my tour manager was a stand-up comedian for a long time, John O'Connell, and he toured with stand-up comedians professionally as well as a manager.

And there's a lot of similarity between what I do and what stand-up comedians do. And one of the similarities that I've really started to understand is I've talked to a variety of comedians, Jimmy Carr already helped me think this through because he's thought a lot about what he does and is able to articulate it well.

You know, Carr said that—and I know many comedians do this, and maybe you do this when you're preparing a set—is that, you know, he'll go, when he's preparing new material, he goes to smaller clubs and tries out his new material. And some of the jokes land, and others don't, and he just collects the jokes that land.

And so—and I thought that was so interesting because stand-up comedy looks like it's a monologue, but it's got that dialogical element in the initial practice because he helped me understand that you could be a comedian by telling a lot of jokes and seeing which ones people laughed at and then just collecting those.

And you don't need much of a hit rate, right? If you need to generate 90 minutes' worth of material and you have 5 hours of jokes, you can just get rid of the 80% that aren't any good. The audience will tell you what's funny.

One of the things I love about the lectures that I do, which are spontaneous, so I'm always watching people, you know, in the audience. I'm always talking to someone, and I want to see them—I want to see their eyes light up. I want to see them be struck by something, right?

I want to give words to something they already know but can't say, and people have told me that a lot—that they like my lectures because I say things they know to be true but haven't been able to articulate. And certainly, comedians do that well; they do that all the time.

And it is great because often if I can make a point that's that has that characteristic but is also funny, I mean that's a real— that's a blast. If you can manage to pull that off, it's a real blast too.

And when you're writing your set, you know, because I do 90 minutes, but you do it in groups, you know? You do your jokes in groups to build on an idea that culminates. You know, it's like little groups are probably five to seven minutes, and you start at one premise with a joke.

And then the next joke is that kind of built on that previous premise, and it goes a little bit deeper, and then the next—yeah, yeah—goes deeper. And then by the fifth part of the bit, you've blown up the whole premise and showed that it was all along.

That's what I like to do, and it's like turn everything on its head from its head. I can't really explain it, but that's my favorite part because it's like, "Oh, she went—we thought she was going to go left, but she went right."

I mean, I'm not talking politically! We thought she was going here, but the whole time she was taking us here. I love that misdirection stuff because that gets the biggest laughs because they thought they were getting set up for something completely different.

I like to remove their expectations where they go, "Oh yeah, I've heard this before." You know? And you know, by virtue of the fact that I've always been one of the few women in comedy, um, that's been an A plus for me.

You mentioned earlier that you have thought through comedy from the perspective—I think you said age and sex? What else? And so talk a little bit more about being a female in the comedy industry because most comedians are male. Like my experience has been that truly comical stand-up comedian females are very rare.

So now it's too hard. It's so hard. But you know, one thing I found out, probably because I have five kids, you know, that's one of my good jokes. I say, "You know, I have five children; I used to be kind of pro-life."

That's a good joke!

Yeah, that's a good joke. But uh, my friends are all comics. But you know, all these guys— I always ask people because I'm a nosy, nosy old Jewish woman, and uh, so I'll ask, and they— they always have a funny mom. So much part of it.

Oh yeah, you know, so that's interesting. You know, my mother— my mother just died. She died this week. And one of the great memories I have of my mother is, and this is something I always knew about her, I could always make her laugh.

And so that was a big basis of our relationship. I could always make Mom laugh by teasing her. In fact, I think the last thing I said to her when she was in the hospital, I was giving her hell about being in the hospital because my father was ill and so we were worried about him.

And then she ended up in the hospital, and I gave her a rough time, and you know that made her laugh. And so that's interesting, and I didn't—I haven't heard anyone say that that relationship of comedy with mother is so particularly important, but that was definitely the case in my household.

It was my mom that I could really make laugh. I wonder— I wonder why that is exactly. It's obviously a form of play, but I wonder why it would be sex-linked like that.

Well, I want to hear more about your experiences as a female comedian. [Music]