These ARE two talented performers, though Steve Martin has always seemed distant from the characters he plays (or over-plays), and thus distant from his audience. Short was definitely on the cutting edge when he was with Second City, but he, too, keeps a wall up between himself and his audience, from authentically connecting with characters and therefore his audience. This separation is reminiscent of Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles and the comedians of that age and style. Where Short can and does go over the top too easily, Martin steps a few feet close to that line, but is never closer to genuine hilarity than arms-length version of saying the lines he's memorized. His performances always feel extremely rehearsed.
This show suffers mightily from a pretense of casual and extemporaneous humor and conversation. Presumably, everyone in the theater and watching the streaming show knows that this is all carefully written and ACTED. So, why bother with the artifice?
Weirdly, Short told a story about the origin of one character, saying he started it on his run with SNL. But, that's not true; he did the nervous sleazy lawyer years earlier on Second City. Why lie about that?
They could have had real conversation, building a show on topics and having real conversation and humourous insughts, etc, but instead, everything is highly scripted and timed to the second.
It's also weird to have a piano player in the stage, who is strained to act funny, too. It was just awkward, unfunny and painful. And, insulting.
Beyond the clunkiness this causes, the 'humor' is weak or, in the case of Short, painfully over-the-top slapstick that just isn't funny anymore. Do people laugh? Of course! But, I'm confident that much of the laughter from theater audience is from 1) the expectation that these guys are funny, and 2) nervous response to being shocked at how lame or insulting the performance is.
There's entirely too much dependence on their past celebrity, along with reliance of context long in the past - to the point of irrelevance. The message really is that they're depending on a sense of shared memories of decades ago, with no real effort to be funny or insightful in context of today. It's like a lounge singer trying to make a living doing Rat Pack-style singing.
If I'd paid to attend live, I'd have left early and asked for a refund. As a Netflix viewer, I hung in for about 20 minutes, waiting and hoping, then realizing it was never going to happen.
This show suffers mightily from a pretense of casual and extemporaneous humor and conversation. Presumably, everyone in the theater and watching the streaming show knows that this is all carefully written and ACTED. So, why bother with the artifice?
Weirdly, Short told a story about the origin of one character, saying he started it on his run with SNL. But, that's not true; he did the nervous sleazy lawyer years earlier on Second City. Why lie about that?
They could have had real conversation, building a show on topics and having real conversation and humourous insughts, etc, but instead, everything is highly scripted and timed to the second.
It's also weird to have a piano player in the stage, who is strained to act funny, too. It was just awkward, unfunny and painful. And, insulting.
Beyond the clunkiness this causes, the 'humor' is weak or, in the case of Short, painfully over-the-top slapstick that just isn't funny anymore. Do people laugh? Of course! But, I'm confident that much of the laughter from theater audience is from 1) the expectation that these guys are funny, and 2) nervous response to being shocked at how lame or insulting the performance is.
There's entirely too much dependence on their past celebrity, along with reliance of context long in the past - to the point of irrelevance. The message really is that they're depending on a sense of shared memories of decades ago, with no real effort to be funny or insightful in context of today. It's like a lounge singer trying to make a living doing Rat Pack-style singing.
If I'd paid to attend live, I'd have left early and asked for a refund. As a Netflix viewer, I hung in for about 20 minutes, waiting and hoping, then realizing it was never going to happen.