Jen Kirkman

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The Jane Krakowski Gala at Salle Willfrid Peletier  had an excellent lineup of comedians: Tituss Burgess, Chris D’Elia, Jen Kirkman, Randy (the puppet), Eman El-Husseini, Sean Emeny, Donnell Rawlings and Steve Simeone.  The variety of talent was so great that this was a really enjoyable gala, as galas go.

Coming from New York with her hit show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Jane Krakowski has a few Emmys under her belt. And while she has had a ton of success in the United States, with the election of Donald Trump, she would like the world to know that she wants to move to Canada.

During her show Jane reminded us she is usually typecast to play characters like Jenna Moroney (30 Rock) and Jacqueline Voorhees (Unbreakable: Kimmy Schmidt), narcissistic, overwhelming women with multiple personal problems and psychological issues bordering on insanity. But in truth, she tells us, she couldn’t be anymore different then the characters that she portrays on television. She cares about people around her and likes to give them jobs; that’s why at all times she has a “dozen unpaid interns massaging the leather interior of [her] car  so it doesn’t crack in the sun.”

Although her performance was strong, the theme of her show “how great Canada is” is getting pretty tiresome at these galas.

It seems that whenever an  American comedian is hosting a Galas, that person has to mention “how amazing Canada is compared to the United States.” Just a thought for future hosts: please quit talking about how much better Canada is in your jokes, it’s been way overdone.

We know,  it’s great up here.

The Highlight of Jane’s performance was most definitely when her costar Titus Burgess, who said he just flew down just to “sing this one with her” and he was planning on flying back to New York immediately after, serenaded the audience with his sweet angelic voice.

While Jane gave us a decent performance, the standouts from the lineup were really excellent. There was Randy the Austrailan puppet with some serious Schadenfreude  for people aggressively waiting in line at the self-checkout of the supermarket. Then there was Chris D’Elia’s delightful observations of the nature of Canines. Elam El-Hussaini, meanwhile, spoke about the “Israeli-Palestinian Issues”  with her Jewish wife at home. Finally, Sean Emeny was like a deadpan joke machine who rapidly spit out hilariously innocent jokes; think Jimmy Carr, but without insults.

By the end of the night I had such a great time I didn’t mind if Jenna Krakowski seriously decided to moved Canada. For one reason, we would get to see a lot more of her funny self. And secondly, she’d probably talk a little bit less of about how great Canada is if she were a resident.

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I think there’s a chance Jen Kirkman may read this review. She did, after all, make reviews a topic of discussion in the informal preamble she had with the audience before launching into her performance of Irrational Thoughts at OFF-JFL.

I say performance rather than set because, as Kirkman warned us, it wasn’t a standup set but rather a one-woman show that told us one story, her own story, with different chapters, each separated by a few years. There was music, there was dancing (a very honest, self-deprecating dance routine that really worked with the overall show) and, of course, there were plenty of laughs to be had by the audience.

Kirkman didn’t tell jokes in the classic setup-punchline sense. The humour came throughout from her well thought out storytelling arrangement and matter of fact delivery.

Think of her as that one person at a party who starts telling stories to a small group of people which grows as she continues. Everyone is cracking up, they’re not laughing at her but rather laughing with her laughing at herself. No one wants to get up to use the washroom because they might miss something funny and if they need another beer from the fridge, they will race right back to hear the rest.

Kirkman is a captivating performer and the audience laughed along with her (even though she wasn’t laughing on the outside) as she told her tales. Through all this, she touched on cold war hysteria, problematic parents, sexism in the 1980s education system, fear of flying, 9/11, Gary David Goldberg and recent politics in her home country, the US.

She did a great job of viscerally explaining her horror at the Trump victory and profound disappointment at a missed historic opportunity for women and the young girls who may be inspired. As for her Sanders quip, well, if I was wearing my political pundit hat, which I wear the other 11 months when JFL isn’t running, I may have had something to say, but I’m wearing my comedy reviewer hat, so all is good.

And speaking of comedy reviewers, she brought up one in her preamble, Steve Bennett (from Australia, it seems). Unlike him, I will mention that the audience was laughing the whole time and I will add that I was laughing along with them.

Jen Kirkman: Irrational Thoughts runs until July 29 at Mainline Theatre, tickets available through hahaha.com