Surprise Christopher Titus show tonight!

[thehefner]

So I'm awakened this morning by a phone call from frumple an old buddy from my theatre days in the Rude Mechanicals whom I haven't heard from in a non-LJ capacity for a long while. He asked, "Hey, Heffie! So, we have tickets to see Christopher Titus tonight, but can't go because we just had the baby. Wanna go?"

It didn't even occur to me to call back an hour later and ask if it was an April Fool's prank. Because for those who don't know, um, yeah, Titus is one of my heroes. NORMAN ROCKWELL IS BLEEDING is one of my primary inspirations and models for everything I set out to do with THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES (to the point where I'm embarrassed to see older versions of the show, lest I find all the places I'm cribbing Titus). Henchgirl worships that show too, and if you recall during that post-Christmas week of hell, it culminated in us rewatching the whole show, even though we pretty much knew it by heart between us.

So yeah, actually seeing Titus live out of the blue? A little suspicious, even though Frumple and K. are not the kind of people who'd do that to me. And so of course, it was the real deal. We're back in DC for less than a day, and we're getting to see one of our favorite solo performers ever, for free? Holy bejabbers!

The show itself was amazing on a number of levels. For one thing, it was way longer than I was expecting, because he essentially did two shows: one show of all-new material that he's still working on for a new Comedy Central special, followed by essentially all of LOVE IS EVOL.

Rule of thumb I've learned over the Fringe circuit: solo shows should almost never run over 60 minutes. That's just the nature of the art form, just as stand-up comedy sets shouldn't go beyond, like, 45 minutes to an hour. Titus is one of those guys who seems to prefer doing hour-and-a-half sets, which would be horrible if he weren't so great at what he does.

So it's to his credit that he did not one but TWO entire shows, clocking in at about two and a half hours (!!!), and he managed the sustain the energy and life throughout. Mostly.

But even the rough patches were great to see, because man, at this point in my career as a solo performer, I felt this amazing sense of kinship with what he was doing. I now know the feeling of trying out new material, particularly playing off the audience when a joke doesn't go as well (or when it goes *really* well in an unexpected way). It was humanizing and inspiring to see his process, and I'll be very interested to see how it shapes up when the special comes out.

I actually meant to buy a DVD to have him sign, since they finally finally finally released NORMAN ROCKWELL IS BLEEDING to DVD, but since they were twenty-five bucks a pop, ehhhhhhhh heh heh, yeah, no, I'm getting that shit on Amazon and getting it signed later, on the hope that I'll get another chance. Possibly with him actually seeing one of my shows in the future?

So yeah, super epic awesome thanks and congrats to frumple and K. This was an amazing experience.

Comments

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

What did you think of his Fox sitcom? I mostly liked what I saw of it, although I didn't watch it often because the then-wife hated it.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I loved it! I still need to see the whole thing, but every time I caught an episode, I was never disappointed. Sorry to hear that the then-wife hated it. It's not for all tastes, but honestly, anybody who didn't find that humor--a humor born out of the most painful places--is somebody I just couldn't get along with.

[frumple.livejournal.com]

Hey Hef. Glad you and HG enjoyed it. K and I couldn't think of someone who would enjoy the show more than us than you guys.

And for the record the tickets weren't exactly free. You own K and I a drink sometime in the near future whent he four of us can get together. :)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Oh I know, and drinks shall be administered, be they from a bar or my own liquor cabinet!