Sarah Silverman audibly perks up when she unexpectedly hears the voice of an Englishman calling from the Austin Chronicle. “It’s fun,” she laughed, “because you get to be exotic. It’s why I want to go to Sweden, I hear they love Jews.”
Exotic, we agree, is all about context, like Silverman’s own childhood in New Hampshire. “Everyone was always like, ‘Are you from New York?’ and I was like, ‘What’s New York?'”
It’s four days before her post-pandemic return to the stage for a special night of Sarah Silverman and Friends, the big closing show at this year’s inaugural Moontower Just for Laughs. Silverman will take the stage with Rosebud Baker Rory Scovel, and Guy Branum. “The reason why,” she explained bluntly, “is that I don’t have a new hour yet. You’ve got to work it in front of a crowd, so I get to do everything I’m working on now, and feature these brilliant other comics.”
It’s arguably the perfect time for the return of Silverman’s form of self-described gallows humor, and mortality is definitely on her mind. She noted that she’d just sat shiva for her friend Gilbert Gottfried, and it was a reminder of how joyful funerals can be. “It was sad, tragic, but also fun,” she said, getting to share stories and memories with his family and friends. After all, she said, comedians either die really young, or keep going forever. Her plan? Join that latter list, “stay healthy and live long and be a Mel Brooks or a Shecky Greene.”
“Comedy always finds a way,” she added. “It’s like a little flower growing up through the cracks in the sidewalk.”
Austin Chronicle: What’s it like to get back to actual live performance after the last couple of years, in which live comedy just wasn’t a thing?
Sarah Silverman: It was really odd, because it was the longest I went without doing comedy since I was 18. It just felt so odd, and once we realized that, oh, this isn’t just going to be a couple of weeks or a couple of months, that’s when I was like, alright, I give in, I’ll do a podcast – because I had no place to put it all.
AC: I’ve talked to a lot of artists over the last two years about the urge to do something. There were musicians just doing gigs on their porch, or filmmakers working in sealed sets. But live is such a part of standup, so how was it for you, that last two years of not having that immediacy of the laugh?
SS: Especially with the Zoom shows. I was not an early adaptor of that because you’re doing standup, and standup is a tennis match, and there’s no one to hit the ball back. You’re just talking.
“You can’t practice standup in front of your bathroom mirror. You practice in front of crowds.”
That legal there?
AC: I think we just don’t mention it.
SS: Yeah, it’s just abortion that’s illegal.
AC: Yeah, I think 4:20 is a festival that observed on all days around here.
SS: Oh god, that’s right, it’s 4:20. It’s also Hitler’s birthday, so it all evens out.
AC: Way to bring the room down.
SS: Well, you know, I love to do that.
AC: That’s always been the great balance with your comedy – your ability to slide the subtle knife in. I’ve talked to people in a lot of different artistic endeavors over the last couple of years, and some of them have been very reticent about taking on hard stuff, or heavy material because it’s the audience was all on edge, or they were saying, ‘I don’t want to take on anything dark because I have so much darkness in my life.’ But pushing the audience is what really established you, and what audiences come to you for. So where’s the level of Sarah’s work now?
SS: I think that I’ve changed in my comedy, but the common thread is probably looking at the darker elements of humanity, I suppose.
Gallows humor is such a lifeline, and we’re living in such dark times just in general that it’s something to really mine because we’re having a lot of shared experiences that are really fucking dark. Comics that just ignore it and have a good time, they’re probably some of my favorite comics. I’m just not one of them. I definitely want the audience to be laughing and happy, but there’s definitely something special when you’re sharing, when you’re commiserating.
AC: It feels like now is one of the toughest eras for comics, because if you look back through the 60s, you could have your set and run it for years and years. Now you’re in a position where the amount of material comics have to produce is insane, because five minutes after you first do a set the whole thing is on YouTube.
“The more I prepare the looser I can be, so I’m more studious than I probably seem on stage.”
I’ve done three specials, and I’ve been around a long time. A lot of it was because I don’t think in terms of specials ever, so three specials would pass and someone would go, “Ya wanna do a special?” “Oh, yeah!” and whatever I was working on at the time would be what it is. But it’s wild, people are on their tenth special. People I think of as kids are way beyond me in specials. It’s just not how I measure anything, and I’ve got to work towards one because I do owe one to HBO, but that’s not how I put a clock on it. Eventually I go on the road and I put it all together.
I remember Jay Leno doing The Tonight Show, and he was going, “I don’t understand why all these comedians have to do specials. It burns all your material. I have the same material forever because I won’t do a special,” and it occurred to me, “Oh, yeah, he doesn’t do specials, that’s so weird.” But that sounds to me like, I don’t know, you’re just reciting the same forever. I guess if you’re the Stones, you wanna sing “I’m Just Waiting on a Friend.” You can have the same hits, the audience wants it, they expect it. But with comics, you’ve got to always be writing and always be changing.
I guess you could have one act and do it forever, but eventually you’re not the same person, and you’re doing someone else’s act from who you were five years ago or ten years ago. The world changes so fast, [and] in the current climate where we’re learning so much new stuff and implementing it – or not, if you’re old and want to go “Oh, kids today” – but I like to change with the times. I think there’s a grace for people to be changed. You can’t be like, “You said that wrong, now we call it this.” I think most people are pretty patient with others learning. I hear people going, “God, with these pronouns and bluh bluh bluh.” You know, you can fight it but in a couple of years you won’t even think about, so you might as well give in. Language is always changing in this world. You can fight it, you can still be mad that Kim’s Video is now a Gap, but the world changes over, it turns over, things change, language changes, and it’s going to happen with or without you.
AC: That’s why I dislike it so much when people get gotcha’d about old material. Sometimes the language was right at the time.
SS: I have a lifetime of fuckups and if you don’t then, yeah, cast the first stone, or whatever Jesus said. The kids today that grow up with social media, they get in trouble [for] something they said as a young idiot. It negates the beauty of change, or the possibility of it. I just can’t stand how oddly elitist supposedly open-minded people can be when they give people no path to redemption. It’s very odd. Do you want them to be changed, or do you like pointing at them that they’re wrong?
Sarah Silverman at Moontower Just for Laughs 2022
Sarah Silverman and Friends, Sun., April 24, 7pm, ACL Live at the Moody Theater.
Moontower Just For Laughs 2022, April 13-24. Tickets and info at moontowercomedyfest.com.
Find all our news, reviews, and interviews from the fest at austinchronicle.com/moontower-comedy-festival.
This article appears in April 15 • 2022.
