Comedy

Comedian Tig Notaro makes Crapshoot roar—briefly

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Tig Notaro, performing Saturday at Fremont Country Club as part of the Crapshoot Comedy Festival.
Photo: Wade Vandervoort
Jason Harris

Here’s the only bad thing I can say about Tig Notaro’s performance at the Crapshoot Comedy Festival Saturday: It was too short. Like, way too short.

Crapshoot Comedy Festival Headliner Tig Notaro

Chalk it up to poor planning on the part of the first-year festival. Though she was one of the main, advertised headliners—along with Dave Attell and Bert Kreischer—she was the only one relegated to a branded show, “Nasty Women of Comedy,” as opposed to an “Evening With” type of set.

And 20 minutes of Tig barely felt like a warm-up, because damn, is she funny. It’s tough to describe what she does onstage. Sure, she talks about her personal life. Yes, she’s a master of dry wit. But there’s so much more to it than that. Notaro is so skilled, she takes things that might be classified “anti-comedy” and makes them laugh-out-loud funny. As she put it, “If you’ve never seen me do stand-up, there’s a lot of silence. If you’re sitting there thinking there must be a punch line soon, not necessarily.”

Take, for example, her story about a former grocery-store boss finding her with popcorn dust on her nose. The boss found it hilarious; Notaro didn’t. That’s the setup. Then this:

“This is not a story I’ve worked out before. You need to change the looks on your faces. I can’t give you what you need. I can tell. This is what I came up with for a punch line for that.” She moved her arm up and down like a politician giving a speech. She continued, “You need to work with that. You need to file that away in your brain as, ‘That was funny, okay?’”

In print, no laughs. Live, the entire house was rolling.

Her work with a heckler was just as excellent. When a woman in the back of the room yelled, “Terrible!” it wasn’t clear if it was in reference to the show or a particular bit. Notaro first asked if someone just yelled “terrible,” then added, “I’m on your side. This is not a good show.” And then, she concluded, “If I made that up in my head, I’ll deal with this later.”

As Crapshoot looks back on successes and areas it can improve upon, Notaro’s performance should qualify as both.

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