Dave Chappelle Stand Up Shows
Dave Chappelle’s New Stand-Up Special Is Hilarious (And Even Subversively Pro-Life) In his new stand-up special, Dave Chappelle is at his offensive best, taking aim at everyone. But one seemingly. Dave Chappelle, mastermind behind sketch comedy goldmine Chappelle's Show, made a triumphant return to stand-up comedy in 2013. While he's beloved for his famous impersonations of Rick James and Prince, Chappelle doesn't rely on old material for his stand-up act, treating fans to an all-original show featuring extensive improvisation as he interacts with audiences. David Khari Webber Chappelle, also known as Dave Chappelle, is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer. Chappelle is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Emmy Awards and two Grammy Awards. He is most known for his iconic and acclaimed satirical comedy sketch series Chappelle's Show. The series was co-written by Neal Brennan, which ran until Chappelle's retirement. Aug 15, 2019 “This is Dave,” says Morgan Freeman in the one-minute trailer released Thursday to hype Dave Chappelle’s new Netflix stand-up “comedy event.”. Jun 23, 2012 Dave Chappelle On Bill Cosby. Chappelle's Show - Trading Spouses - Duration: 7:46. Dave Chappelle Stand-Up Monologue - SNL - Duration: 11:37. A review of the second night of stand-up comedian Dave Chappelle’s second performance on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre and resulting Netflix special, ‘Sticks & Stones.’. Jul 10, 2019 For those spending hundreds of dollars to see Dave Chappelle on Broadway, some advice: Don’t leave your seats too quickly. On Tuesday, the first night of a 10-show engagement at the Lunt.
For those spending hundreds of dollars to see Dave Chappelle on Broadway, some advice: Don’t leave your seats too quickly.
On Tuesday, the first night of a 10-show engagement at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, as most of the audience filed out after what was for him a subpar set, Chappelle returned to the stage for another hour, taking suggestions on what to talk about. What followed was looser, more surprising and funnier than what preceded it.
When someone shouted “Kanye West!” Chappelle embarked on one of his ornate historical digressions, comparing the rapper to the boxer Jack Johnson, whom he described as a great pioneer for African-Americans but one driven by self-interest. Asked about the recent news that a black actress, Halle Bailey, had been cast in the lead of “The Little Mermaid,” he quipped: “If they draw her as a catfish, I’m going to be furious.”
And when someone asked why he lived in Ohio, Chappelle described a recent visit to Aziz Ansari’s house and marveling at how incredible it would be to live in a New York home like his. Chappelle’s extra note of seriousness seemed intended to set up a shift of gears: “Yeah, but he flies commercial.”
This joke, which he followed with effusive praise for private jets, is not exactly relatable. But it is, I believe, revealing, a reflection of the rarefied world Chappelle has existed in for the last 15 years of his fame, since the days of “Chappelle’s Show,” the sketch show that made him a superstar.
He has been a fixture of the culture for so long that it’s easy to miss how eccentric he is. What other comic would dress in a dark jumpsuit (with his name on it) that looks like something Michael Myers would wear in a “Halloween” reboot?
Chappelle’s peculiarity has long been an asset, giving him an outsider perspective. But he’s not an underdog anymore. In the past year, he has appeared in the big-screen hit “A Star Is Born” and taken time to mentor Will Smith on stand-up. And now he’s making his Broadway debut, part of a theatrical lineage of standup explored on a recent episode of the illuminating podcast “The History of Stand-up.”
The theater might provide a rich target for Chappelle, but outside of his opening line (“Welcome to the most heterosexual show on Broadway”), it’s not one he trains his sights on. Chappelle doesn’t much adjust to the room. He does what he does, with supreme confidence. But his fiercely independent streak has led to a more indulgent performer constantly doubling down, returning to old obsessions, courting controversy and then exploiting it in his shows to play the beleaguered star.
After he was criticized for mocking transgender people in two 2017 specials, Chappelle seems to have become fixated on the subject, alternating between lukewarm jokes about this marginalized group and defensive justifications for them and even apologies. “Got to stop with the trans jokes,” he tells himself at one point.
But the time spent on this subject is overshadowed by his other favorite long-running pastime, expressing sympathy for rich and powerful men enmeshed in scandal. Chappelle has become the bizarro Joan Rivers, obsessed with celebrities, but not to skewer them so much as to play their defense attorney.
In his new show, he does Louis C.K. few favors by defending him limply. He also speaks up for Kevin Hart who, in his telling, lived a blameless life when his dream of hosting the Oscars was dashed because of a few tweets. And after litigating the case of Michael Jackson on specials in 2004 and 2017, he does so again here, telling his audience not to watch the recent HBO documentary, “Leaving Neverland,” in which two men who accused Jackson of sexual abuse speak out. Chappelle says he doesn’t believe them, and then adds that he has no evidence, before sputtering that even if the pop star was guilty, “he’s Michael Jackson.”
As he has told audiences many times, Chappelle says he is not in “the being right business.” He often adds qualifications to these provocations, but it’s hard not to notice that he sympathizes so much with his peers in wealth and fame. Once again returning to what he sees as the excesses of #MeToo, which he has soured on even more than in his special in 2017, when he described victims as “weak,” he focuses on the plight of the men, those accused, but also the ones who might be. Chappelle refers several times to the dangers of being canceled. He’s not worried, he says, because he doesn’t rape, but adds: “I have a few Aziz Ansaris in my past.”
The extensive Playbill bio noted that Chappelle’s comedy has “often shocked his audiences into laughter.” But there’s nothing shocking anymore about his making fun of transgender people. He does it so relentlessly that it has become blandly familiar. And the way he pairs this material with constant justifications, explaining how these marginalized groups, which he calls “the alphabet people,” have disproportionate power in Hollywood, is defensive, predictable and ultimately cruel.
Chappelle would argue, rightly, that comedy contains cruelty, and no one has demonstrated the comic potential of punching down better than him (see his sketch about beating a kid with cancer in a video game on “Chappelle’s Show”). But the bar for such jokes is higher, and he doesn’t scale it.
Dave Chappelle Stand Up Shows List
Of the dozen or so times I have seen Chappelle headline, this show was the first where I occasionally felt bored. Make no mistake, he remains such a naturally funny performer that he is always worth seeing. And where his greatest gift was once the conspiratorial way he would introduce an idea, teasing an audience by saying he probably shouldn’t say something, now his signature is to bring up something ridiculous and flash some side-eye.
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He uses it to particularly sharp effect to mock Jussie Smollett, the rare disgraced celebrity he displays little sympathy for. Imagining the police hearing Smollett’s story that he was attacked by men wearing MAGA hats in Chicago, Chappelle flashed that side-eye before imitating an officer excusing himself and saying to a colleague: “Find out where Kanye West was last night.”