Laughter on the page

Critic Laurie Stone analyzes the art of stand-up

by MATTHEW HAYS

Stand-up comedy tends to be perceived as a lowest common denominator of sorts: performances thought of as simply a good time and nothing else. Leave it to the Village Voice, then, to recognize a previously unacknowledged cultural force. Some 10 years ago, theatre reviewer Laurie Stone pitched a column about stand-up acts. Stand-up, she correctly intuited, was having a growing influence on North American culture and, in fact, already had a considerable legacy. Urging her editors to let her write about any one-person show that made her laugh, they took the bait and her Laughing in the Dark column was born.

Stone wrote about acts like Sandra Bernhard, Eric Bogosian, Dennis Miller, Whoopi Goldberg, Tim Allen and Spalding Gray, who were all emerging from the stand-up scene and taking on new roles in theatre, film and TV. Laughing in the Dark: A Decade of Subversive Laughter is a collection of Stone's reviews, interviews and commentaries as they were seen in the Voice. (Surprisingly, the collection includes entries on Montreal's Just for Laughs Festival from only 1988-91.)

Stone is a considerable, award-winning writer; each insightful entry is delightful to read for her command of the language alone. She describes trailblazer Sid Caesar (Your Show of Shows) as "coming across as a bull, a dangerous id creature jabbering in nonsense languages and flipping facial takes like a master magician a deck of cards."

Stand-up is often seen as a refuge for scoundrels, a place where the status quo is maintained through cruel jokes which humiliate the marginalized and put the powerful at ease. Stone certainly understands this historical truth and spends considerable time analyzing stand-up artists like Joan Rivers, who Stone argues has a problematic relationship with other women and feminism; she explores the alternate inroads made by women who've challenged their audiences and taken the art form places it's never been before.

Some of the most interesting points in the book come with Stone's anecdotes about interactions with the stand-up comics themselves. When she wrote a not-entirely flattering piece about Sandra Bernhard, the diva was furious, dissing Stone night after night as part of her act. Stone phoned Bernhard to clear things up but was greeted by an answering machine. She nervously left a gushing message in which she tried to clear the air by saying how much she loved Bernhard. Bernhard proceeded to play the tape as part of her act, and even replayed it the next time she did Letterman. Stone turned down a chance to appear in the movie Without You I'm Nothing as a critic mouthing off about Bernhard.

Gossipy tales aside, Stone's book is an important contribution to the far-too-slight canon on stand-up comedy. By approaching stand-up as it should be approached--as a cultural force to be reckoned with--Stone's collected columns prove that comedy is serious business.

Laughing in the Dark: A Decade of Subversive Laughter by Laurie Stone, Penguin, hc, $29.99