Stage
Asking Hari
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Hari Kondabolu plays his first show in Ithaca By Br yan VanC ampe n
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Hannah Gadsby is incredibly personal, omedian Hari Kondabolu has and kind of playing with the lines of “How performed on “Jimmy Kimmel serious and deep and thoughtful can comLive,� “Conan� and “The Late edy be?� It deconstructs comedy by talking Show With David Letterman.� He is also about the very nature of what comedy is a regular contributor to NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me,� “Morning Edition� and “All and what we’re supposed to do. She talks about it from a very personal, painful Things Considered,� and he has a special place. It kind of inspires me to push myself on Netflix, “Warn Your Relatives.� He’s further and further, just because I wonder performed at Cornell University, but his show at the Hangar on March 19 is his first what I could do, if that’s what people are willing to do. show for, as he puts it, IT: I think all the “Ithaca proper.� Kondgreat comedy comes abolu’s documentary film from truth, and some“The Problem with Apu,� times the truth can be in which he examined painful. “The Simpsons� characHK: All my heroes, ter of Apu’s modern-day the people that inspire presence and East Indian me the most, were the representation in culture, people that were willing became a national talking to put themselves out point in 2017 when it was there. I mean, [Richard] released. Pryor set himself on fire, Hari Kondabolu talkand he’s onstage talking ed to the Ithaca Times about it afterwards. That about making comedy Hari Kondabolu to me is the ultimate personal, and how “Wait example of that. Wait� got him to book a IT: Ithaca’s big into NPR, so we have show in Ithaca. to talk about “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.� IT: Where are you these days with Before seeing your Netflix special, that’s your comedy? where I first heard you. HK: l I feel like I dig a little deeper in HK: Yeah, it’s been pretty great, the last this one. Historically, when I’ve talked two years of being on “Wait Wait.� That’s about big issues, I feel like I don’t perone of the reasons I wanted to play Ithaca, sonalize it enough. I feel like I talk about actually: [nationally syndicated columnist] them sometimes in the abstract. And so I Amy Dickinson, who lives in Ithaca, has wanted to make it more personal this next been telling me to play Ithaca for a while, hour. So, whether I’m talking about dehow I’d have a lot of fun playing Ithaca. pression, relationships, children or whatI’ve been increasingly getting emails from ever, it’s definitely a lot more personal and close to the heart. I’m willing to take a risk. Ithaca and messages online saying I should play there. Ithaca, outside of Cornell, or There’s something about failing when you maybe Ithaca College, wasn’t a place that have material that isn’t about you. Like, it I thought about performing in. But the hurts a little bit, of course, but it doesn’t constant [messages saying] “You should hurt as much because it’s like “Yeah, they play Ithaca, you should play Ithaca,� the don’t agree with me. They don’t think idea that I’m getting as many messages I’m funny. I did the best I could.� And it’s about Ithaca as I am about Buffalo, it’s like, something that actually has stakes in your “Okay. Let’s play Ithaca.� identity and sense of self. That’s a bigIT: One minute you’re listening to ger risk. It’s scarier, but it makes it more “Wait Wait� and the next minute you’re rewarding when people connect with it. on it. IT: As a comedy fan, it’s just been HK: It’s such an institution. The first so great to see all these different voices time I did it, there was that thing of, “Will emerge. they let me do it again?� And to hear Paula HK: It’s a great era. I think this is the Poundstone’s voice all those years and then new golden era. Just how media is right now, in terms of how many different places to be sitting next to her during a taping is certainly a little surreal. What people hear you can see things. It also means that there’s less gatekeeping, and there are more on the radio, it doesn’t even touch how funny the show actually is. A lot of stuff voices that get to be heard. I just think it has to get edited out, the language and all makes for better comics in the long run. that. The shows get pretty fun; they get There’s a younger generation coming up pretty wild. [laughs] There are stories that that’s seen more comedy and seen all the don’t get told outside the room. little tricks and different ways of doing things. There are comics like Julio Torres, that are rewriting what comedy can be.
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