comedy
The Franz Kafka of Modern-Day Comedy
At fi rst glance Richard Lewis might just look like a surly old white man who has every intention of
keeping that baseball you threw into his yard, but the minute you strike up a conversation you’ll probably be
ready to forsake the ball in place of escaping Lewis’ neuroses. In much the same vain as Larry David (Curb
Your Enthusiasm) — to whom Lewis’ fame, at least with the younger generation, can partly be accredited
— his comedy rolls along like a barrage of twitchy self-deprecation that leaves you wondering whether the
shrinks he so often discusses actually know what they’re in for. This said, the man is a legend. A comic genius
of the highest order, and just as funny now as he was back in the day.
For those unfamiliar, Lewis is Jewish. Say that ten times fast. This means, much like his Curb counterpart
David, he’s been involved with wry, feverish deadpan comedy since his fl y-by-night beginnings in the ‘70s.
Infl uenced by Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce and the like, he’s worked through a career of television, fi lm and
stage work that many should be familiar with; the 1993 Mel Brooks fi lm Robin Hood: Men in Tights, for
instance, adorns Lewis’ fi lmography.
Lewis is from an era in comedy that reveres honesty and openness, no matter how many times you have
to remind the audience that you’ve got issues — Richard Pryor’s legendary performance at the Sunset Strip
comes to mind — and he embodies the anxiety of masochistic, psychologically taxing comic production with
gusto. As Mel Brooks once uttered, “Richard Lewis may just be the Franz Kafka of modern-day comedy.”
Although he might take you to the end of your rope, mostly by way of being at the end of his, Lewis has
found a way to ramble with eloquence, and this gives him a grace that most would be hard pressed to locate
in this day an age. Granted, it’s sorta like listening to an ill-tempered senior citizen at a delicatessen, if
they ran out of pastrami and there was a completely non-pressing political issue at hand, but nevertheless
I’d much rather listen to Lewis complain for six hours than hear a 40-something Larry the Cable guy say
“git’rdunn” one more motherfucking time, and I’m betting you would, too.
Richard Lewis performs 8 pm Friday, June 29, at McDonald Theatre; $40 adv., $45 door. — Andy Valentine
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