Comic Authori-tay

A review of Charlie Sheen's "show," Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option by Owen Gleiberman of EW.com provides a nice take on the comic's control or presence required for delivering an effective stand-up routine:

The show kept to a mini version of rock-star time, starting exactly half an hour late, and Sheen dispensed with any fripperies. From the get-go, it was just Charlie, out on stage in a matching black New York Yankees cap and T-shirt, sitting down in a plush armchair to be interviewed by his softball patsy/straight man. From the get-go, the trouble with this format, at least when you’ve got a personality as hostile and acerbic as Sheen’s, is that it basically sets up the audience to hear a series of zingers. In essence, they’re expecting “sit-down comedy.” And Sheen doesn’t have any jokes! He just has grudges that make him sound like a bad Vegas insult comic (think Andy Kaufman’s Tony Clifton, with less charm). His dribbled-out, half-baked ramblings try to be funny, but mostly they’re like setups without the punchlines. And that has a weirdly enervating effect. Every time he coughs out another observation that’s greeted by murmury silence, punctuated by the occasional “Bor-ing!,” a little more air gets sucked out of the room. And pretty soon everyone there is starting to suffocate.

I can testify that if he had actually tried to say something thoughtful or confessional or interesting, even if it had been deadly serious, the crowd would have been with him. Instead, taking “edgy” puffs on a cigarette like the Denis Leary of 1988, he tells “stories,” a lot of which are reruns, and almost all of which sound like vague and hazy barstool anecdotes. Which is why the first trickles of heckling, I’m not kidding, commenced within the opening five minutes. People are used to entertainers, even mediocre ones, establishing a rhythm, an authority, and Sheen, in his act, doesn’t deliver that basic, organizing energy. He’s essentially reactive, which is why he’s so effective on talk shows, or even during those hostile news-media interrogations. He requires an antagonist to heat up his tiger blood.

Read the full review here.