Comedian Maria Bamford is coming to the Improv in Tempe this weekend. Bamford is a legend in the world of stand-up — your favorite comic’s favorite comic, as she’s often referred to.
Marc Maron, one of stand-up’s elder statesman, is often asked to name the best comedians in the game on his podcast, WTF, and he never fails to mention Bamford as his first pick.
She’s starred in her own Netflix series, “Lady Dynamite,” appeared in countless television shows as both an actor and a voice actor and published a best-selling memoir last year called “Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult.”
But, if you watch Bamford’s comedy specials, you might get the impression she’s a nobody. Here’s a clip from her 2017 Netflix special, “Old Baby.”
MARIA BAMFORD: People always say — once you’ve been doing something a long time — they say, “meh, I bet you always knew you wanted to be a comedian.” I did not want to do this show today.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]
BAMFORD: You guys know that.
If it sounds like nobody’s laughing, that’s because she’s performing to an audience of four people on a sidewalk bench. Bamford could’ve easily staged her special in a sold-out theater — but as she told The Show recently, that’s not exactly her comfort zone.
Full conversation
MARIA BAMFORD: I like something much more intimate and even awkward. I rehearse with people — I’ll put it out on Twitter, “I’m in this zip code. Does anyone want to meet me for coffee?” And then I’ll rehearse my act one-on-one with a person. And I find that really creatively satisfying.
SAM DINGMAN: OK, so this is fascinating to me. That that makes a lot of sense — the idea that for yourself, as an artist, you want to do the material in an environment where there’s maybe less of an expectation on the part of another party that it really lands — to see if it’s really working.
But to me, there’s also a secondary choice that you're making in a lot of these cases, ’which is to show yourself performing in front of small audiences. It starts to make it feel like maybe you’re making a comment about the expectations that people bring to comedy.
Is that fair to say?
BAMFORD: Well, the thing I like about standup is the underdog feeling of that the person is a bit of a weirdo or an outsider.
DINGMAN: That makes sense, that makes sense. Like, in a way, by showing yourself as somebody who would harangue four people on a bus stop bench with your material, there’s like almost something more honest in that — if I’m hearing you right — about what it feels like to be a comedian.
BAMFORD: Yeah, I feel like I’m the used bookstore of comedy. Like I just, I love a used bookstore. Oh my God, give me a dirty copy of something that several hundred people have dropped in a bathtub, and that it’s fun because I found it.
DINGMAN: I’m really interested in this. This idea that you’re talking about a version of the performance that is much more true to what it's like to do the performance.
BAMFORD: Yeah, yeah.
DINGMAN: Well, one of the reasons that I’m interested in this question and your relationship to the nature of performance is because another thing that in my mind comes up a lot in your work is the very question of whether or not you’re going to show up for one of your own performances. Like, that’s something that you make reference to a lot.
BAMFORD: [LAUGHING] Yes.
DINGMAN: Like you talk about how you’re often debating whether or not to go on stage — like right up until the last possible second. Can you tell me more about that? Like, is that uncertainty related to the act of doing comedy or the act of doing comedy in front of people?
BAMFORD: I think its depression. I think its that feeling of, many things in life are uncomfortable to me — and I wish I were not that kind of person. My mom passed about three years ago, and she really just loved life and/or she made a decision to choose to see everything she got in life as the perfect thing.
Like, she was always, “This is wonderful. Isn’t this fun?”
DINGMAN: Yeah, that’s one of my favorite bits in “Local Act,” your most recent special, is where you talk about her deriving joy from a three-hour tech support call with Verizon.
BAMFORD: [IMPRESSION OF HER MOTHER] “Oh, listen, I was just talking with Monty, and he’s out of Atlanta, and I says, ‘we’ve been to Atlanta. What a star city that is.’”
And like, she would just — yeah — connect with everybody. And, one of my newer jokes is just saying, I just want everything to be over, including our phone call right now. I’m enjoying myself, but I can’t wait.
DINGMAN: No, I — just to say — I think that’s one of the things I love about your material is I find that very relatable, including you were joking about this — or not joking — about this phone call that we’re on right now. And I, similarly, in getting ready to talk to you today, I was so anxious to talk to you because you’re somebody I admire very much.
And I was sitting here before we got on the line thinking, I can’t wait to have talked to Maria Bamford.
BAMFORD: Right, right. Yeah. Like, I think there’s a fantasy — at least for me — that every day is supposed to be a joyful romp, when I’ve never been a joyful, romping person.
DINGMAN: But can I ask you about that, though? Because I wonder, like, when you get on stage, are you able to find any joy in the performance? Because I—
BAMFORD: Oh yes!
DINGMAN: OK, because in “Local Act,” for me one of the biggest laughs is when you’re in the middle of a story about yourself and then you mime passing out on the stage. Like you fall asleep.
And then you get up and you say, “I’m sorry. I lost interest in my own narrative.”
And it’s hilarious. And it made me wonder — and I think I’m getting a sense of that in actually talking to you now — how much of that is true? Like how much of what we’re seeing there is you navigating real doubts about the relevance or significance of your work?
BAMFORD: Oh, completely. As you get older, it’s hard not to realize over and over again how you’re not really needed.
DINGMAN: This is all very interesting to me, because I have to talk to you about the ending of the special where — you, throughout the special, are talking about wanting to be invited to join groups and your various struggles with that over the course of your life — and then what you do at the end of your special is you invite anyone who wants to, in the audience, to come up on the stage and do stand-up.
So, it’s almost like you’re inviting them to be a part of your group instead.
BAMFORD: Oh, that’s funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s — yeah — be a part of my group. I love an open mic, and I also feel like there’s some spiritual books about creativity where they’ll say, you know, you can make anything happen. And all your dreams can come true. And I just, as an atheist and as a fellow human being, I know that’s false.
I just, I know that’s false. That things are inherently unfair and monstrously whimsical. So, yeah, just to give everybody a chance to be in a TV show — on my watch anyways — that if you want to be in something, here you go. Especially having it be an open mic thing felt really good because that’s — I do like the democracy of an open mic that everyone gets to go up.
DINGMAN: But that’s so generous of you to think about other people’s dreams that way.
BAMFORD: Well, I’m glad you liked it.
DINGMAN: I did. The thing that I think was most moving to me in the moment of watching it was the shots of you in the audience, just laughing.
BAMFORD: I like to laugh. I love comedy. I do, I do, I do, I do.
DINGMAN: Yeah, I’m really taking that away from this conversation. Well thank you, Maria Bamford, I really appreciate this.
BAMFORD: Thank you so much. This has been really fun. And I look forward to coming to Tempe.
DINGMAN: Yes, yes. Maria Bamford will be at The Improv in Tempe this weekend.
BAMFORD: OK.
