THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Cerebral, narrative-driven, existentially thought-provoking comedy is having a bit of a moment. I consider this in the moments after the house lights come up on Mike Birbiglia’s The Old Man and The Pool and it puts me in mind of my son, who has come with me to the show, asking me what Birbiglia’s style is like beforehand. I tell him I don’t know much about him except that he produced Alex Edelman’s Just For Us, which had a fantastic run in Southwark’s Menier Chocolate Factory last year.
Like Edelman, Birbiglia is a self-deprecating New England raised New Yorker who uses pivotal moments in his life as a springboard to launch into a narrative show that takes us on a personal journey. That is about where the similarities end. Birbiglia’s show and his style is older and more mature, less frenetic and more evenly paced. He draws out moments in his life that others might find prosaic and unworthy of pausing at and squeezing as much laughter juice as he can out of them.
What results is an hour and twenty minutes that is both hilarious and deeply thoughtful, sad and surprising and ultimately, unexpectedly uplifting.
Birbiglia uses the deepest and rawest details of his own personal health issues and makes comedic art out of them with a masterfully laconic delivery that sometimes feels as though he is simply leaving a somewhat dark joke on the floor and daring us to pick it up and laugh at it, which we inevitably do. We start early on in the show in a doctor’s office with Birbiglia, laughing at his inability to register more than a puff of air in the spirometry test and the very American sense that his lifestyle choices have led him to a place where he needs to consider some serious and drastic changes if he wants to be around for a lot longer for those things in his life he enjoys and the people that he loves.
If it sounds a little unpromising as a comic concept, take heart in the fact that as a raconteur, Birbiglia is adept at using the most ludicrous details of his early experiences with exercise and sport to poke fun at himself. British audiences will enjoy – probably with a little discomfort since as a society, England is not very far behind America on this – stereotypically American anecdotes of reveling in junk food and the rejection of a health regimen that seems like a bit too much effort.
However, it is truly the even mix of pathos and the quieter moments of contemplation in this show that set it apart from most comedians working today. Birbiglia makes use of light and sound significantly, if sparingly, to underscore the moments in this show where he considers what is at stake and how many important and vital parts of his life – the way his three year old daughter has an appetite for a different type of comedy than most adult audiences for instance, balanced with thoughts of his potentially impending death – are influencing him to instigate significant change.
As clever a comedy show as you will see in London right now, Birbiglia’s The Old Man & The Pool brings with it a surprisingly evocative, yet irresistibly mirthful sense of joy.
