Louis C.K: So Wrong, Yet So Right

There is excitement and laughter to be found in everyday life you just need the appropriate lens to see it, and Louis C.K. provides this.

September 2nd, 2011, Melbourne, VIC @ Althenaeum Theatre

Louis, Louis, Louis…politically incorrect in so many ways. Louis C.K. dares to go where he probably shouldn’t and yet he makes his point, induces an eruption of laughter and has his audience waiting with bated breath for the next dubious topic. Part of the thrill of his performance is anticipating what will blurt from his mouth next and once the subject is broached, watching in awe, as he somehow digs his way back toward the light.

Drugs, sex, homosexuality, divorce, racism, fatherhood, anatomy, toilet humor – there is little that escapes his observation. C.K. revels in the grotesqueness of our bodies, our society, and life in general. Topics that in the hands of others would be unbearable come across with seeming ease and hold a worthy place on stage. He can go where others fail and come out clean on the other side.

There is humility is his comedy; he does not ferociously attack others, instead he feels empathy and is able to put himself in the shoes of someone else. While he makes outrageous statements he is rescued by the fact that he is now only speaking of himself or attacking the world at large.

The comedian’s first show in Melbourne at the Athenaeum Theatre sold out in minutes. A second show, on the same evening no less, was announced and again tickets were a sell out. Not a bad effort for a man whose television series Louie does not even get an airing on Australian network television. Known for offering fresh material to his audiences, C.K. did not show his Australian audience any disrespect by recycling bits from his show. The one or two familiar gags in the whole routine were pulled off in a tone different from what we’d seen before.

The same cannot be said for Australian comedian Tom Gleeson who opened the evening. Most of his material was old and rehashed. However, Gleeson knew his place and was bearable. His funniest instances were a couple of digs at himself, and a moment where he stepped away from his routine to reassure a couple of latecomers that they were indeed at the right gig and that Louis would be out shortly.

Louis strolled across the stage to great applause and opened by announcing that he had never been to Australia before. Unlike most other visitors to a new place, he didn’t really care that he hadn’t made it here before, declaring it to be: just another place with a bunch a different people in it. In fact he had spent the whole time in his hotel so far. His attitude was not spiteful or derogatory but instead honest and a commentary of a shared human laziness and disinterestedness that adults tend to have about the unknown.

C.K. gets a laugh because he has a wonderful ability to tap into human insecurities. He notices what it is that makes people uncomfortable, those things that most people think and feel but would never articulate, and he talks about them and because of his bravery, stupidity – whatever you want to call it – we all laugh because we can all relate to the things and feelings he is talking about.

Stories of drug-hazed states of hallucinations are generally entertaining. As are, torturous travel recollections, sexual escapades gone wrong and anger filled divorce stories. No matter who tells them, these topics get a laugh, but when C.K. tells them you can see his embarrassment, his disgust and the squeamishness he feels about his own reality. All of which makes these moments very funny. However, C.K. best connects with his audience, and indeed gets all of his audience connected to one another, when he tells stories of small moments close to home.

Nasty things he did when he was a kid, such as antagonizing a boy he didn’t like into hitting him with a stick just so he could revel in this child’s punishment. Or, stories about his own kids, having to read to them books that he feels nothing but contempt towards, such as Clifford The Big Red Dog and the tugging between hatred for the text and the need to be a good father. As well as the frustration he describes in being abruptly woken from deep regenerative sleep; a sleep so desirous that you want it in replacement of reality. C.K. is at his best when he talks about trying to make it through life with as little trouble as possible.

Unlike so many other comedians, C.K. steers clear of political commentary and it is a pleasant relief. His focus is on people; average, normal, or abnormal. Everyday people and the ridiculous things that we do or say to one another in this bizarre journey called life. C.K.’s life and comical philosophy (though I am sure philosophy is not a label he would give it) can be summed up in the proverb that he has borrowed and shaped to his liking, ‘Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime. Or just leave him alone and he’ll figure something out.’

Using his own life as the focus, C.K. proves that you don’t need to have a crazy, overly adventurous existence to be entertaining. There is excitement and laughter to be found in everyday life you just need the appropriate lens to see it, and Louis C.K. provides this.

His tour is certainly brief but a blast all the same.