After years of self-aware, self-aggrandizing fanfare mixed with constant belittlement at the hands (and peer-reviewed articles) of our elders (and often even from our peers), the oldest of the millennial generation are at last slowly being forced into becoming adults. And comedian Chris D’Elia ("Undateable," "Whitney") finds himself on the front lines. "Realizing you’re an adult is crazy," the 36-year-old said Saturday night to the first of two sold-out audiences at The Vic. "I’m finally the age I look."
Still, recognizing that we’re well into adulthood physically doesn’t mean that we’re all grown up mentally. And the long-haired, scruff-faced D’Elia ("I know I look like a tired eagle," he quipped early on) embodies this bemusing reality.
Mindfully striding across the stage in a maroon T-shirt, jeans and black tennis shoes, he used his newfound feeling of adultness as a jumping-off point for a sometimes surprisingly deep (but always profoundly silly) discussion of his previous marriage (and subsequent divorce), his experience interacting with a friend’s young daughter and a thorough attempt at eradicating the idea that anyone in this world is special.
That last point especially seemed to weigh on him. "We’re not special," he adamantly maintained. "We’re just people." But we’re made to think otherwise. "Our whole society’s designed to make us feel unique and special," he grumbled. "You can do anything you put your mind to," he imagined the world telling us, to which D’Elia quickly responded, "No you can’t! You can do four or five things max!"
After following this train of thought for a few minutes more, he dived deeper. "Some of you guys think I’m talking about other people," he mocked. "You are other people to other people!"
Awakened to life’s meaninglessness, D’Elia’s theory of inconsequentiality wasn’t limited to those not on a stage talking into a microphone. In a poignant moment he cast himself as a background player in the movie life of a couple who happened to come see his show. "I’m not even Chris D’Elia in this movie," he pointed out. "I’m Comedian Number Two."
In this scenario Comedian No. 1 would likely be Chicagoan Michael Larimer, who opened for D’Elia with a strong 15-minute set that veered from the intimidation factor of various sports team names (with the Bulls being especially tough-sounding) to poking fun at his own lack of sports skills despite his towering height to the unfortunate naming of our local highways after politicians like Kennedy and Eisenhower ("Why wouldn’t you name expressways after evil people, like Hitler?" he wondered).
Larimer’s lighthearted humor served as an ideal warm-up to D’Elia’s playfully acerbic and expertly physical set. Notably, D’Elia’s 75 minutes felt more restrained than in his previous two recorded specials, with his infamous improvisation and audience interaction limited here to a few brief jabs directed at those in the box seats. Even his signature uncontrolled open-mouth laugh — frequently deployed in reference to his own jokes — was in short supply. Perhaps he means it with the growing up, facing down the timespan between quarter-life and mid-life — let’s call it a third-life crisis — with equal parts retrospection and defiance.
"We all think we matter more than we actually matter," he dismissively asserted later in his act, circling back to one of his original thoughts once he’d already navigated the tricky waters of his own failed marriage and his desire to be as honest as possible going forward, including never again pretending to be interested in attending a friend’s birthday party (nine years old is when everyone should have their final birthday party, he contended).
But D’Elia could only keep up his cavalier persona for so long, closing out the night with a lengthy story about time spent with his best friend’s four-year-old daughter. ("He used to be my best friend," he professed. "Now he’s a dad.") In D’Elia’s telling, the girl becomes increasingly cuter as he pushes to become harder and more aloof while they interact.
It’s here that his dilemma — and perhaps the dilemma of all young people transitioning into true adulthood — becomes clearer: how do we hold on to the wonderment and magic of childhood while also embracing the burden of being a responsible adult (or even a functioning one)? How much of our true selves do we have to give up (or, conversely, accept) to cross that line?
Until now, D’Elia has energetically worked mostly shallow, trivial material (to great, hilarious effect). He seems to be attempting to go deeper here, subduing his natural wildness while still seeking to maintain an air of blissful immaturity. And it’s working. On Saturday night D’Elia’s maturing, more composed delivery raked in the laughs.
But as he would be the first to point out: that’s nothing special.
Zach Freeman is a freelance writer.
ctc-arts@chicagotribune.com
Twitter@ZachRunsChicago
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