Tig Notaro broke through with her evocative special Live in 2012, recorded just days after a breast cancer diagnosis. Two years ago at the New York comedy festival, she pulled off her shirt to reveal the scars from her double mastectomy, a “bit” that she included in her 2015 HBO special, Boyish Girl Interrupted.
But for anyone who associates Notaro’s comedy with trauma, her show on Saturday night at Carnegie Hall was a return to her pre-tragedy form, full of goofiness and absurdity and with only a few references to the difficulties of her past few years. Where once her standup recounted life-threatening illnesses and personal losses, it now recounts stories about her wife’s baffling questions, her four-month-old twins, and her evolving relationship with her cat.
She is better at that easygoing material than she has ever been. Her comfort level on stage was apparent in an imposing venue like Carnegie’s Stern auditorium, as she owned the stage in her jeans and button-up shirt. Notaro’s physical comedy is expressive in minimalist ways – a simple turn of the head is hysterical in her storytelling – and she repeatedly stopped the show to comment on the material, or call out individual reactions from audience members in the first few rows.
Early on, she referenced a time in her standup career when audiences didn’t know what to make of her and her low-key, repetitive style. But she’s clearly found her crowd – the thousands of people who gamely sang the chorus of Yellow Submarine as she pretended to be Ringo Starr, and roared when she discussed her love of elongated words, eg minivan = miniature vanagon.
In a Facebook video to promote the show, Notaro promised a “big, special surprise”. Given her history of celebrated shows, expectations were high. That surprise came at the end, when she announced excitedly that she would be bringing out the folk duo the Indigo Girls, to a big cheer from her audience.
What followed was nearly 15 minutes of fake-outs and false intros for the band, with Notaro repeatedly exiting and entering the stage, occasionally polling the audience on whether or not they thought the Indigo Girls were actually backstage.
It was goofy but effective, creating a feeling of intimacy in the room. With each fake intro, she was building an inside joke with the crowd. The resulting hysteria felt less like a comedian telling jokes and more like friends sharing a hilarious situation, unable to stop laughing or explain the joke to anyone else.
Ultimately, the band appeared, playing several songs chosen by Notaro. Her overwhelming delight at sharing the bill with her favorite band was evident – at one point, she sat on the stage between the two of them, looking back and forth like an eager child.
Closing out her show this way seemed to reaffirm that her comedy is shifting back to where she likes it: weird and silly, with a joyful light-heartedness. It’s all about having fun again.
