Interview: Gary Gulman Talks New Solo Show GRANDILOQUENT at The Lucille Lortel
The one-man show plays now through 2/8
Gary Gulman has been a standup comic for 30 years and he's brought a one-man show called Grandiloquent to the Lucille Lortel Theatre through February 8. Gary was kind enough to talk to me for BroadwayWorld.
This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Why should someone come see your off-Broadway show?
Because I'm as good as it gets as a standup, and I've written a funny and heartfelt show. If you're a fan of my work, you will enjoy it and if you are not a fan, you'll become a fan.
Wow, you should've been in PR. That's really good.
(Laughs) Thanks man, and that was riffed. And I'm not all that comfortable being so braggadocious. But I'm feeling pretty good about the show.
That's great. How is it different from seeing you do a normal standup set?
That's a great question. With a standup set, the formula overall is you try to get as many laughs as close together as possible, and with this [show] I wanted to build in something that was heavy in order to explain and also show people rather than tell people what it feels like for a standup to have this coping mechanism [of laughter] and this tool taken away. I mean, I could not practice that in a comedy club, and it was very difficult to do it on the road so I had to practice it of course in rehearsals, and then at shows at QED in Astoria, and at Union Hall in in Brooklyn, where the entry fee was so small that I did not feel guilty about being heavy and not funny for an extended period of time. At one point I felt over my head, but I think that's a good feeling to have when you're trying to work on something outside of your comfort zone is to feel like, "oh no, what have I done". And then you figure it out, and afterwards you're a little bit more confident and a little bit stronger in terms of moving forward as an artist.
You reveal a lot in your shows. Does that hurt you or help you as a person?
Oh, I think it really helps. I remember early on, while working with my therapist, who plays a part in the show. His name is Alan Lefkowitz and he treats a lot of comedians in New York City. His most famous client was the late great neurotic Richard Lewis. He told me [something] early on when we were talking because I was a very private person and my act was very private. It was very similar to what Seinfeld does in terms of you don't really find out much about Seinfeld, you just find out what he thinks of answering machines. And I was very careful to not let anybody know anything about me because I was afraid that they would hurt my feelings or they would judge me and my family, almost to the point of paranoia in terms of keeping things to [myself]. And my therapist said, if you're an open book, nobody will have anything on you. And that appealed to me. And so, I slowly started opening up about myself. There was a time when I did not even tell anybody I was in therapy. I would sneak in and out of my therapist's office in college. And then I told everyone with an HBO subscription that I had spent a month in the psych ward of Weill Cornell hospital and I didn't flinch and it was really cool and I'm glad I did it because I was able to lessen the stigma associated [with that].
Does it make you feel better, just getting it out there?
Yes, totally, because there's no anxiety about these things or energy put into keeping it to myself. I feel [a] much deeper connection with my friends who I've shared it with in many cases. I think that's really good advice that my therapist gave and I'm really glad I took it.
Do you have any preshow rituals?
Yes, I read my script from beginning to end… There's like three pages that I highlighted where I've dropped lines from... I make sure that I go over those twice and then I pace and say a prayer of gratitude to God, who I believe in, but I'm not really a fan, but I believe in Him and I am frightened. I am frightened to not believe in Him, but I thank Him for this outlet and for an audience who enjoys me and ask Him that they enjoy the show and feel my gratitude for them. And I learned that I should drink coffee from about 5:30 to 6:15 before the show so that I am completely focused and alert. It's not like a Broadway musical, but there is some endurance involved in doing a nightly 90-minute show.
You say you believe in God, but you're not really a fan. What does that mean?
Yeah, well I mean I [went to] Hebrew school at a time when they taught, and maybe they still do, the Old Testament as if it were history and so there's all these stories of Him smiting non-believers. So I was raised with more fear of God than certain other religions find in there... Jesus seems to be a more relaxed, gentle deity than the Old Testament God.
Do you have to go back through your journals to find the material [for your show]? What are some of the things you have to do to craft the show?
That's a great question. I have a lot of notebooks so there was a lot of scouring for [material] because we would say, "we need to include something about this." And so I would scour my notebooks from the past year and a half to find things that were applicable.
What do you think is comedy's role in our political climate?
It's the spoonful of sugar, I think, in getting these ideas across. I think it's so important, and I've read articles about how you attack autocrats and fascists and it's to mock them and ridicule them and I really thought that was going to be enough to keep people from voting this man in. Jerry Seinfeld [said] “no comedian ever changed my mind.” Well, that's not true for me. I learned a lot from and changed a lot of my mind from Bill Hicks and Richard Pryor and George Carlin and Samantha Bee and Sarah Silverman and Maria Bamford and Laurie Kilmartin and it's just a really valuable weapon.
You tweeted all those great comedy tips. Is there one that you think is the most important?
I'll give you two. One was the first one, which is listen to all your sets. When I listen to my sets, I'm writing, even if I'm just writing down what I said verbatim, I find that that will prompt me to say, "well what if I had added this?" I'll circle a word that I think I can find a better word [for], either a funnier word or a less common word. It gets you to do the hardest thing, which is to sit down and write. And then the other advice I always say is to be the comedian you would want to see. It's like a version of that idea, write the book that you would want to read.
How do you feel about AI?
Oh, I mean, early on, and this is probably three or four years ago, somebody at either The Daily Beast or Vulture put my name and said "write in the in the manner of Gary Gulman". And [I] was like, "oh that's not bad, that's not a bad set up sentence… it's not that funny but that kind of sounds like me." And so I was like, oh, this is this is a little bit impressive that it's able to do that. But for now, I haven't seen anything that frightens me as a writer. I'm just frightened as a citizen that it's capable of perhaps doing a Matrix style or Terminator style takeover of the of the military industrial complex.
Are you a musicals fan? Because this is BroadwayWorld.
Yeah, oh my gosh, yes. My mom used to take me to a regional theater when I was growing up called the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly, Massachusetts and so she took me to see Fiddler on the Roof and Man of La Mancha… maybe A Chorus Line and stuff like that from the 70s… Grease and things like that. Now when I have the money to go to Broadway [I go]. And then my wife and my manager were laughing, because my manager loves musicals and he's saying that that he would out cry me. And he said, "I cried during every musical theater performance", and I said, "yeah but when?" And he says, "you know, when it gets to the really heavy parts," and I'm like, "I cry during the overture". I get so moved by the medley they play at the beginning because of everything that goes into making the musical, and the dream come true of these people to be on Broadway, and then there's always something that that tugs at your heartstrings. I'm trying to think of some things that I saw. [I saw] Tina when it was out, and then I saw [A Strange Loop]. I saw Oh, Mary. We saw The Wiz. I loved it. I was blown away by it. I'm so grateful that I live in New York and we get to see so many musicals. I was playing basketball at the Y and there was this young man and we were playing and he was so good at basketball and I'm not great at telling how old somebody is so I asked him if he was in college and he said no, I'm 31 years old, and he was wearing a Manhattan College of Music [shirt] and I said are you a musician? [And he said] I'm an opera singer, and his name is Justin Austin and he invited me to see him do Elijah at Carnegie Hall. And it made us, like, opera buffs. My wife and I went and she put it so well, she said, "that was breathtaking." So, we've seen a number of a number of operas since then, but what's so interesting is we didn't know that Justin was in just about every opera we would see, either a big part or a small part. It must be a very small world because he is really prolific and it was so exciting to be able to see him. It's been awesome. We live in a great city for music and theatre lovers.
Find more information on Gary Gulman on his website at garygulman.com.
Grandiloquent is playing at the Lucille Lortel Theatre through February 8. For tickets visit www.gulmanshow.com.
Header photo credit Michaelah Reynolds
Comments
Videos