Gay Comedy Without a Dress. (peformance review) (Funny that way: Comic Jason Stuart wears the pants on his hilarious new CD--and proves that gay guys can get laughs from all kinds of audiences without doing drag).Gay Comedy Without a Dress * Jason Stuart * Self-distributed * Comic Jason Stuart wears the pants on his hilarious new CD--and proves that gay guys can get laughs from all kinds of audiences without doing drag As the title of his CD, Gay Comedy Without a Dress, suggests, stand-up stand·up or stand-up adj. 1. Standing erect; upright: a standup collar. 2. Taken, done, or used while standing: a standup supper; a standup bar. comic Jason Stuart knows the difference between being laughed with and laughed at. Culled from appearances at the Acme (company, jargon) ACME - /ak'mee/ 1. A Company that Makes Everything. The canonical imaginary business. Possibly also derived from the word "acme" meaning "highest point". 2. A program for MS-DOS. Comedy Co. in Minneapolis, Stuart's CD shows just how far that out gays and lesbians have come in the field of entertainment: They no longer need to don the proverbial dress and camp it up to get the laughs. In mining his own experiences for material, Stuart--an openly gay actor who has appeared on The Drew Cagey ca·gey also ca·gy adj. ca·gi·er, ca·gi·est 1. Wary; careful: a cagey avoidance of a definite answer. 2. Crafty; shrewd: a cagey lawyer. Show and Will & Grace--manages to find his audience's common denominators. While the key to Jason Stuart's appeal is his ability to cross over to a wider audience without alienating anyone, gay or straight, in the process, it also doesn't hurt that he's funny as hell. Stuart wastes no time digging into his routine, going from zero to frantic in six seconds flat. Over the course of an hour Stuart barely allows the audience time to catch its breath. Some of his material is universal--his trials with his family or his religion--while other aspects of his show rely on an exclusively gay spin. When relating how his brother asked him "what role he plays" in his same-sex relationships, Stuart quips, "I'm Patty Duke Patty Duke (born December 14, 1946) is an Academy Award-winning American actress of the stage and screen. She currently resides in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Childhood She was born Anna Marie Duke in Manhattan, New York, U.S. to an Irish American father, John P. in The Miracle Worker." At a few points during his act Stuart name-checks the gay canon--for instance, clicking his heels and blurting "There's no place like home, there's no place like home" when he feigns exasperation with the crowd. The comic is at his sharpest when he goes off the script and interacts with the crowd. His remarks about others are stinging without being mean-spirited, and his jabs at himself are self-deprecating without sounding bitter. Unfortunately, when compared to the fresh angle with which he approaches the rest of his material, the nods to The Wizard of Oz Wizard of Oz reaches and departs from Oz in circus balloon. [Children’s Lit.: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz] See : Ballooning Wizard of Oz false wizard takes up residence in Emerald City. [Am. Lit. and Judy Garland seem perfunctory per·func·to·ry adj. 1. Done routinely and with little interest or care: The operator answered the phone with a perfunctory greeting. 2. Acting with indifference; showing little interest or care. and listless (programming) listless - In functional programming, a property of a function which allows it to be combined with other functions in a way that eliminates intermediate data structures, especially lists. . Stuart is funny enough without having to rely on such cliches. Gdula is a freelance writer who has written for The Washington Post and Details. |
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