\n<\/p>\n
Wearing a bow tie, pocket handkerchief, crop top and shorts, Jenny Slate stands on a shiny circular platform on the distressed BAM Harvey theater stage. It\u2019s an image of sharp contrasts, the kind you find in her comedy, where commonplace subjects are imbued with manic, absurd charisma. Her version of relatable is asking: \u201cYou know that one feeling when you can tell you\u2019re going to pass away?\u201d<\/p>\n
Whereas her debut special<\/a> incorporated documentary elements, this hour effectively captures the improvisational eccentricity of her live act. Slate is blessed with a spectacularly nimble comic voice. She\u2019s also a deft physical comedian, and her best bits show off both traits. When trying to describe the strangeness of giving birth, she likens it to the discomfort of being invited to audition for Pennywise the evil clown. Rattled, she expresses the shame at being considered for the part by flapping her hands, looking perplexed (\u201cThat couldn\u2019t be the murdering, kidnapping, balding male clown, right?\u201d), doing a creepy impression of the character as well as the meeting among producers that led to this offer. It\u2019s a screeching, sputtering display of kvetching that builds runaway comic momentum.<\/p>\n (YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n While most specials go too long, this one, at 39 tightly funny minutes, is just right. Punchy, diverting, varied, it\u2019s a perfect pick-me-up for your lunch hour. In clothes as casual as his delivery, Dan Soder presents himself as a laid-back people-pleaser, the kind of guy aiming for a specific kind of dumb. As he puts it, he wants to see a trailer for a new \u201cFast and Furious\u201d movie and be shocked that they found a way to go faster. But make no mistake: His lightness requires heavy effort. And his comedic tool kit is full, featuring sharp impressions (Batman villain, Enrique Iglesias), melancholy notes and clever phrasemaking. In a story illustrating the childhood joy of curse words, he says this line with a genuine (and ridiculous) sense of nostalgia: \u201cI was 8 years old, just out having a cuss.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Cara Connors is a queer millennial comic whose debut hour shifts from her divorce from a man to a very funny description of lesbian breakups (lots of gratitude in both directions). She says she\u2019s terrified of waking up, opening her phone and seeing this news: \u201cElon Musk is bisexual.\u201d Her face goes dark. \u201cNow I have to welcome him into the community?\u201d Then she imagines the headline with her hands: \u201cJeff Bezos, gender-fluid.\u201d She erupts in a baritone: \u201cI can\u2019t do it.\u201d Connors seems to search for reasons to lose her bearings. It\u2019s where she is funniest. Bounding around the stage with \u201cthe energy of a mom at a wedding who has had too much to drink,\u201d she offers some dutiful jokes (like the Standup 101 opening analogy of how she appears to others: \u201cI know I look like if they let Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet start eating again\u201d) and a couple that peter out when they should build. But she makes up for the rawness of joke writing with a frenetic charm and a powerhouse voice that shifts from giggly to laid-back to demonic in a flash. It\u2019s a promising debut.<\/p>\n (Amazon Prime Video<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Tig Notaro ends her latest special by playing the piano even though she has no idea how to play. It\u2019s not an original idea. In fact, comics who can\u2019t play the piano trotting one out has become an unlikely subgenre. Jim Gaffigan brought one<\/a> into a special as a sort of prank to raise and dash expectations. Rory Scovel<\/a>, who has a new special on HBO Max, used to do an impression of a guy<\/a> who can\u2019t play the piano hired to play the piano in a hotel lobby, struggling. Notaro also plays on the comedy of faking it, but as she plunks away at the keys, in the middle of a story of volunteering to perform an Adele song at a party attended by Adele, her version is about the comedy of confidence when you should have none. It suits her gift of soldiering through awkward situations with unflappable deadpan.<\/p>\n In the past, she\u2019s used this to take big swings, both experimental<\/a> and more personal<\/a>. This special is a more modest effort, and her personal anecdotes can\u2019t help but name-drop now that she\u2019s better known. Its centerpieces are embarrassing stories like a misunderstanding at a meeting with Reese Witherspoon or an awkward moment with a physical therapist, anecdotes that she beefs up into comic vignettes, which she retells from different angles. There is a pleasing calm to her delivery that stands out in a scene of fidgety hams. But it can also be a little too loose, even underdeveloped. While noodling on the piano, she says, \u201cIt kind of sounds like something.\u201d If you try hard, you can hear it.<\/p>\n (YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In his best stand-up release since his Bush-era albums, David Cross dryly rages against rich kids, American Christians and the Florida laws that prompted a textbook publisher to remove race from a lesson about Rosa Parks. His alternative history of how Florida would teach the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or the Holocaust is superb over-the-top political humor that belongs to the George Carlin tradition of ridiculing euphemism. Cross is a practiced and entertaining hater, baroque, inventive and righteous. You never think he doesn\u2019t mean it \u2014 or is doing something for a bit. And he doesn\u2019t spare himself from scorn. He happily plays the jerk, calling his spouse \u201cmy current wife,\u201d and getting defensive when anyone might protest. (It\u2019s accurate!)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n What also distinguishes Cross from most political comics is his commitment to taking risks with form, toying with convention in his stand-up just as he once did with sketches on \u201cMr. Show.\u201d He has a joke in which he edits out the punchline and another one esoteric enough that he pauses the show to give people a chance to get it. Some won\u2019t. But he doesn\u2019t seem to mind.<\/p>\nDan Soder, \u2018On the Road\u2019<\/h2>\n
Tig Notaro, \u2018Hello Again\u2019<\/h2>\n
David Cross, \u2018Worst Daddy in the World\u2019<\/h2>\n
Dave Attell, \u2018Hot Cross Buns’<\/h2>\n