The years haven’t exactly mellowed Lewis Black. But why would they? If they had, he wouldn’t have an act. He gets angry so we don’t have to.
In “Running on Empty,” which kicked off its short Broadway run on Tuesday, the 64-year-old comedian waxes apoplectic about social media, the Kardashians and, naturally, the pitiful state of current politics. Not that he offers himself as any kind of panacea.
“Let’s get something straight,” he announced at the start, once the rabid applause died down. “It’s not going to be that exciting.”
He’s right in the sense that his trademark seething has become common in an age when so-called pundits rage hour after hour on cable news networks. It says something about our society that the endlessly fulminating Black now seems like a calm voice of reason.
But that doesn’t diminish his ability to wrest laughs out of the frustration of living in a world going terribly wrong. His natural response is a paroxysm of anger resembling a grand mal seizure — followed by uncontrolled laughter from his listeners.
“No matter what happens here tonight, nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to change,” he declares. True enough, but that doesn’t diminish the cathartic effect of hearing his hilarious, frequently profane rants about the moribund state of NASA (“They’ve taken away my only hope of getting off this f – – king planet”), the word “Obamacare” (“It’s not about the care and feeding of Obama!”) and Facebook, which he describes as “a glorified yearbook.”
When that last line failed to elicit a sufficient response, he turned his comic rage toward the audience.
“There’s a joke there, and f – – k you for missing it!” he bellowed.
By now, Black’s well-honed persona is so familiar that he can get laughs even without jokes. All he has to do is recite the names of the recent Republican presidential candidates, pause, and exclaim, “What the f – – k!”
But there’s no shortage of terrific zingers, such as this one about Newt Gingrich’s sex life: “I have to think about my parents having sex to cleanse my palate.” Or, referring to the 82-year-old Clint Eastwood’s rambling convention speech: “I don’t enjoy being reminded of my own mortality.”
The title of his show may be “Running on Empty,” but it’s clear that Lewis Black still has plenty of comedic fuel in his furnace.