Amy Schumer December 6, the Chelsea.
Early in her set Saturday at the Cosmopolitan, Amy Schumer reflected upon one of the absurdities in the film Zookeeper. Average schlub Kevin James has both a beautiful blonde girlfriend and another woman chasing him. The latter, played by Rosario Dawson, is the pretty girl he doesn’t notice is pretty until the end, because she dresses modestly. Clearly, nobody could tell she’s super-hot Rosario Dawson because of her dull wardrobe. It was a fair and funny criticism of a ridiculous choice.
Unfortunately, it also invalidated much of what Schumer presented onstage. So many of her jokes were of the “I’m the ugly duckling” type, but anyone looking at Schumer can see she’s obviously not. Even Schumer kind of copped to that: “If I go on an audition in New York, it’ll be for the cute girl next door you didn’t notice because she’s wearing khakis. She can’t have a pussy. She’s wearing khakis.” And when she countered that with her experiences in LA, where she’s “auditioning for the girl getting gastric bypass,” it’s about as believable as the zookeeper being chased by Dawson and the blonde bombshell.
Even the well-crafted bits—on meeting Dianna Agron from Glee, who plays Quinn, “which lets you know how hot she is. If my name were Quinn on a show, they’d be like, ‘Oh, the jolly Irish grounds-keeper who does a Riverdance now and again’”—hit with muted impact because of the hollowness to them. Her best stuff was found in the more observational chunks. Of the contestants in the Miss USA Pageant, “These very tan, very hungry cadavers, they walk back and forth across the stage like they’re haunting it ... They make these girls do the impossible and answer one question.”
Schumer is a major talent. She’s going to be a big movie star. And I know she’s a better comic than this. During her residency a few years ago at the Riviera, a notoriously tough room to play, I watched her take a crowd off life-support and own them with hard-hitting, grounded jokes. So while I’m happy she’s playing the big rooms now, I wish she was still playing like she did in the smaller ones.
