Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Maria Bamford breaks the mold, and then creates her own. She is the Inhuman superhero of the comedy marvel universe. Somewhere deep in Minnesota, young women are climbing out of her mold with soft, high-pitched voices you cannot believe and taking to stand-up stages across America today, all because of Bamford.
In her 2012 effort, The Special Special Special, she performed for an audience of two in her parents (excluding the crew, opener Jackie Kashian and Wayne Federman on the keys) in her own living room. Having succeeded there with her toughest, most vital audience, Bamford shows in her new Netflix original, Old Baby, how easily she can connect with audiences of any size, in any location, under any circumstances.
In a mirror, never dearer.
For her loves, with kid gloves.
Four friends on a bench, a playful wench.
In a cramped bookstore, her quirks quite adore.
Outside a hot dog stand, the nighttime act becomes grand.
Astride the lane of a bowling alley, she’s your favorite ally.
In front of cinema curtains, she’s even less uncertain.
And inside a proper theater, she makes you her co-conspirator.
Bamford has done more than perhaps any other comedian to bring awareness to mental health issues (and May is the month for that) – from her breakthrough series, “The Maria Bamford Show” on the once and future website Super Deluxe a decade ago, to more recent efforts, not only sincerely through magazine interviews and podcasts but also for laughs in the wonderfully surreal semi-autobiographic Lady Dynamite on Netflix. If you listen to her 2016 studio album, 20%, or have seen her live recently, then you’re likely familiar with the material she covers here. But you’re missing the other 80 percent. Bamford inspires fans to spread her comedy gospel to those who may not have been converted to the so-called alternatives to club comics.
She addresses them first and foremost, speaking to camera via reflection in her mirror: “I always like to tell audiences, pre-program, just in case you’re brought here by a friend. Sometimes friends lead us astray.”
Comedy ranks as perhaps the most subjective art form; its success measured most easily by reflexes largely outside of our control.
If Bamford herself seems largely outside of our perception of mainstream comedy, then that’s a disservice of our own doing. Instead, let your ears focus on Bamford’s uncanny ability to voice the people around her, from her parents and sister to a fitness instructor, an elderly man at the dog park with no dog of his own, to the students she unwittingly found herself speaking to for a school’s Career Day. Those students call her “Old Baby.” To which Bamford replies, after the fact: “Yes! That is the perfect description of what I am. Very old, and baby-like.”
Given the choice, she’d much rather tell a stranger she worked as a bookkeeper. But as she has finally found a lasting love in her mid-40s, Bamford also has recognized that getting married also shares some parallels with the longing search to make it in show business after more than 20 years in stand-up comedy. “Is that what a relationship is? Is it just continuing to show up without any guarantee?” she asks. “I can do that!”
And if she and Scott have to see a couples therapist in addition to her individual counseling, then at least Maria will write a song out of her experience. The newlyweds (married in 2015) also endure a Neighbors situation, living next to a frat house. They also LARP, as their mothers. And Scott appears as an audience member throughout the hour. At one point, re-enacting a dialogue as both of their mothers, Bamford pauses to acknowledge: “This is more one-woman show territory,” then whispers: “Apologies, apologies.”
She may not utter as many punchlines per minute as the next stand-up comedian in your queue, but her characterizations and asides and winsome charisma will keep you laughing.
No matter whether you’re peering in as she performs for her husband and their two pugs, to four friends on a sidewalk bench, a dozen in a friend’s living room, 18 or so folks in a cramped bookstore, to the back patio of a neighborhood hot dog joint, to the nearby bowling alley, movie theater, downtown Los Angeles theater, or even just Bamford and her mirror. She wears the same T-shirt and jeans in each setting. If her pug cannot make it, there’s a giant papier-mâché of her pug standing by.
If your heart and mind are open, you may just want to show your love for Bamford’s work with a three-second GIF, “that’s like a flame that never goes out.”
On the other hand, she knows that watching her for an hour: “This may be your War Horse.”
But on the other other hand, she adds: “Did you know that on Netflix, it’s possible to run out of genocide documentaries?”
In that case, this old baby might be right up your bowling alley. Ready to win you over once more.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
