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Mike Birbigliasnew specialThe New Oneis the kind of thing that makes you want to speak in superlatives.
Birbiglia begins with a couch.
He weaves in his medical history.
And yet, Imnot sure its stand-up comedy.
The New Oneis a comedy special, for sure.
Its a stand-alone hour, not meant to tell a continuing story beyond this one performance.
Birbiglia turns, slow-motion miming the hand-pumping action of preparing to fire a shotgun.
he yells, assuming the stance of a zombie-movie hero.
ButThe New Ones structure and its aims make me reluctant to call it straight stand-up.
In certain ways,The New Oneis to most stand-up what prestige TV is to the rest of TV.
Its less interested in joke density than most stand-up performances; Birbiglia builds long stretches without major humor-release valves.
He makes a nice joke out of that structure, too.
as he loops back up to the list.
Again, I dont mean to entangleThe New Onein an argument about prestige being the same as quality.
Stand-up does both of these things as well, but generally its priorities are swapped.
Usually something like deep personal growth is the setup, the thing that becomes the premise of the jokes.
Underneath, at the center, is a man talking about fatherhood.
Its often very funny.
Mostly, though, its like being told a gorgeous, well-built story.
