Held Hostage by Comedy
This past Thursday night I attended the Hacks show at the Caledonia Lounge featuring headliner Tig Notaro. I've seen her a few times now, and she always surpasses even my greatest expectations for an awesome show. Thursday was no exception.
I love all of her prepared material, but the magic in seeing her live comes from her crowd work & improvised interactions with her surroundings. This came to us Thursday in the form of a running joke regarding the speakers that were hanging from the ceiling on either side of the stage. She kept claiming she would end the show by cutting the chains & letting the speakers fall on anyone unfortunate enough to be sitting beneath them. The real payoff came at the end when, rather than "cut" the chains, she took a screwdriver found on stage during the show and pretended to (VERY SLOWLY) unscrew the speakers from their tethers - much less dramatic, but way more hilarious.
The last moments of the show (post speaker bit) were even more inventive. I don't know if Tig has been doing this at other shows, but she ended on an interesting note. She kept the show going in a string of false stops that lasted a good 15-20 minutes. She told us about the items she had for sale on a table toward the back, and then she shuffled off stage toward the table. However...she would NOT let us applaud. She would NOT let host Luke Fields thank her or say anything that indicated the show was over. She just said, "wouldn't it be great if this is how I ended the show," thus leading us to believe the show was NOT over.
Then, she stood at her merchandise table TELLING us to get up and leave, but since she wouldn't let us applaud no one would get up. We just sat transfixed - waiting to see what would happen next. After a few awkward minutes, one man finally walked up to the table and asked for a t-shirt while the whole room turned to watch the exchange. Tig even managed to make the selling a t-shirt hilarious.
Luke did finally end the show (much to Tig's consternation). I think we all would have gladly stayed another few hours just to see what she would do next.
.......and to top it all off, I can now have Tig at all my parties.
