Lewis Black is coming to the Lobero to explain how we’ve been had. (Photo: used with permission)
Santa Barbara is a scheduled stop on the comedic monologist Lewis Black’s “The Joke’s on US” Tour. Initially due to perform on Jan. 11, mudslides and road closures have caused Black to set the date back two weeks.
He will now play at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25, in the Lobero Theater.
An interviewer once asked Black what it was to be him. “It’s being on the Titanic every day,” Black replied, “and being the only one who knows what’s about to happen.”
This is kind of a key to his unique delivery, which is loud and angry and exasperated.
Hearing Lewis Black’s act can be like standing at the bar next to a loudmouthed drunk and suddenly realizing he is a genius who is only shouting as a means of cutting through the incessant, meaningless chatter that clutters up our public discourse.
His goal is to punch and claw his way through the thick bubble of illusion with which we surround ourselves, seizing by our metaphorical lapels to bellow the incontrovertible facts straight into our brains.
If you have never experienced one of Black’s routines, this will no doubt sound off-putting, to say the least, but I assure you it is also invigorating, exhilarating, and very, very funny.
As Peter O’Toole said in The Stunt Man, “There won’t be a dry seat in the house.”
Tickets to see Lewis Black are $78. Any tickets already purchased will be honored on the new date.
Tickets can be purchased in person at the Lobero box office, 31 E. Canon Perdido; by phone at 963-0761; or online at http://checkout.lobero.com/single/eventDetail.aspx?p=11043.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.