The 3rd annual Catskills Comedy Festival starts Friday night, and among the performers is stand-up comedian, Moth storyteller, and former NPR host Ophira Eisenberg. Eisenberg will be at the Community Theater in Catskill Friday at 7 p.m. to kick off the festival. The performance comes just months after the release of her new comedy special on Amazon Prime called "I Used to Be Nicer." As she discussed with WAMC's Sam Dingman, she does a lot of material in that special about being a parent.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Editor's note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Eisenberg: Parenting will make you less nice.
Dingman: Yes, you know, one of the jokes that you do in the special that, for me, I find the most — this is such a public radio way of talking about it, but — like bracing is when you're talking about your son and how he's just turned 10, and you say, it was my choice to have this kid, and you pause for a second, and you go, I think I made a mistake.
Eisenberg: You know, I will tell you. Thank you, thank you for pointing that out. You know, I'm the youngest of six, and I was raised with my older brothers and sisters teasing me that I was a mistake all the time. Ah, you know, "Mom didn't want you. You were a mistake," and I very distinctly remember one time mentioning this to her, and she said, "Don't be ridiculous. You all were mistakes." And let me tell you something, she was very funny, but also that's kind of how we used to talk to our kids. They weren't every aspect of your life.
Dingman: Right. Right. Well, and this is one of the other things that I think is really fascinating about the way you do material about your son, who, I should say, it's very clear from the material that you love and treasure him — for anybody who's listening to this and is nervous.
Eisenberg: That should be the baseline we come into it with. But yes, thank you.
Dingman: But one of the things I think is really interesting about it is you talk about him like a person, and you talk about how he's 10, and that means that he is — I can't use the word on the radio that you use to describe him — but he's, you know, he's acting like a jerk.
Eisenberg: He's acting like a jerk. It is true. He acts like a jerk at times.
Dingman: Yeah, and I think there is something really refreshing about hearing a comedian, and if I may, perhaps even a mom, talk about their son, like not as, you know, he's this wonderful angel from heaven. Like, of course you feel that way, but also he has flaws and shortcomings and nuance and complexity.
Eisenberg: Let me tell you, you think this person is going to be the apple of your eye, or they're going to be exactly someone you recognize. And then very quickly, I was like, "Oh my goodness, this person is entirely their own person. I can't control them. They are not me. They are not my husband. They are their own person, and I've got to learn this person." Comedy's about tension, right? So we take something like the aspect of a mom being this nurturing, 100%, you know, unconditional loving, cannot see the flaw. My kid's an angel. And then we marry that with, actually, this is the truth of how people cannot be great to hang out with. And, you know, it's sort of unfortunate and fortunate that as a woman, when you talk about things like motherhood or even sex, that the audience still finds these things as taboo subjects, depending on how you address them. And to me, that gives you a larger picture of just how we see women.
Dingman: Right. Right. Well. OK. Well. So another moment that, to me, puts its finger right on this, like, third rail that you're describing is you're talking about how you go to kiss your son. He says, "Ugh, Mom, you have bad breath. It smells like stale lemons." And you say, "You idiot! That's like a gin with a twist," or a martini with a lemon twist.
Eisenberg: That's right. And it's, you know, ... I live in Brooklyn, and sometimes parents still want to have their adult life, but we have small apartments. So if you have people over to your house and you have kids, you're just all in the same place. And I was, you know, there was cocktails flowing, and then people were like, "OK, go in the other room, kids." And like, you know, "If you fall asleep, there's little sleeping bags." And there was, like, people kissing their kids. And I was like, "These kids are getting like bourbon breath. They're getting, they're getting, like, ... whiskey breath."
Dingman: Well, it's such a great moment because it's so show, don't tell. You know, it presents these realities that, you know, your kid is developing a certain personality that you are still an adult with your own life and sometimes those things collide and we get all of that in this one little anecdote. And the reason that was interesting to me is because I am also a great fan of your work as a storyteller, and it occurred to me in that moment that there's a bit of a difference between what comedy can do with a situation like that and what storytelling maybe has to do.
Eisenberg: Yeah, that's a very astute way of putting it, Sam. I agree, and the speed of which a comedy audience wants to feel their little dopamine hit is also very different. So I love storytelling because of what you said. So you can build these greater narratives. You could have so many things as part of that scene. You can have a running list of all of your own anxieties, worries, whatever it is going on in your head that you communicate to the audience. You figure out ways that honestly expresses your vulnerability, what you are trying to achieve, what you're up against, what your conflict is. So then the audience goes, "Oh, I've been there, and so I'm with you because now I want you to succeed because I want to know what it's like to succeed when I'm feeling that emotion." But in stand-up, you got to rip all of that away. You got to rip all of that away. I feel like you change vulnerability to tension, and so you're just trying to deal with this little tiny thread of something that makes people go like, "Oh, I feel a little weird right now, and then you want to give them the catharsis.
Dingman: Yes, yes, yes. If you don't mind, an example of this for me in your work that maybe helps me understand the difference between these two forms of expression is: would you mind talking a little bit about the story you do about your son calling the card game Old Maid Gold Maid?
Eisenberg: Oh yeah. Oh, thanks, thanks. Yeah. So we had some playing cards as a gift, and one of the decks of playing cards — they were all cartoon playing cards — was an Old Maid deck, and I don't like the narrative of this game. I can't believe it's made it through the ages. I mean, there's a game out there, everyone, called Old Maid that if you get an elderly lady card, you lose. And we just, "Ha ha ha," when can we play? How is that OK? And so he wants to play this game. It's got cartoons on it, and the picture of the old maid is kind of a cartoony woman, motherly woman with brown hair, wearing a yellow dress. And he can't read the name of the game, so when he asks me, and I mumble it because I don't want to deal with this, he hears, and he's looking at the card, he goes gold made, and I love that. So then I go, "Yeah, it's called gold made." And we get into this, and he's like, "How do you play it?" And I'm trying to figure out how to tell him. And I'm like, "OK, you make pairs and three of a kind and four of a kind. And when you get that card," and he just gets excited; he goes, "You win!" And I was trying to rewrite the narrative of everything, but he just expertly handed it to me.
Dingman: I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing that, Ophira. And for me, that story, I feel like I need all of those details to really feel that moment.
Eisenberg: That's what I'm hoping for. That even if I'm picking a bit of material or a topic that is a little deeper or darker, that we're still coming back to, you know, we're laughing at this. It's ridiculous. We're having fun. This makes me want to, like, hug the person beside me and go like, "Ah." That's what I'm looking for. That's my hope. So it's reality with a bite.
Dingman: Yeah, uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gin. Gin with a twist.
Eisenberg: Gin with a twist. That's right. So you know that's my hope.
