Earlier this year, comedian Tig Notaro walked onto a stage in Los Angeles in front of 300 people and began her set with, “Good evening. Hello. I have cancer. How are you?”
And she killed them.
Days before, she had been diagnosed with cancer. In both breasts. Rather than stick with her regular comedy act, she decided to high-dive without a net. The rest is history. Her set, which was recorded, is now being sold as a CD on the website of comedian Louis CK, who was also on the bill that night and who is basically underwriting the CD so that people will hear it. This past weekend she appeared on the radio show This American Life a second time, after having appeared on the show prior to her diagnosis. And this week she appeared on Fresh Air with Terry Gross in a radio interview that features excerpts from her spontaneous performance, which had audience members literally weeping and laughing at the same time. And I’m not telling you the half of it. Give a listen.
Performing versus recounting
Tig Notaro’s performance is great- and easier for the radio audience (certainly me) i think,because she is still ”performing black comedy”-
We hear an audience reacting, and .Tig selects, though spontaneously, what she says,and reacts to the audience reaction.
The second part that week of “This American Life”, a first person account of the young girl and a shark bite and its aftermath (I didn’t get to parts three and fourt) – is not “performing black comedy”. though we know the speaker survived- and she is in a sense performing by recounting it.
However, the listener is just left alone with hearing the horror.
- Could the shark account be made manageable by comedy? I don’t know. I am just grateful for the filtering that” performance” did for us in Tag’s case- though of course we got the easy end.