How to massage an extremely dark joke

Advice from Mike Birbiglia on finding comedy in difficult topics.

Here’s me dealing with a heckler who loves doing feet stuff:

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Are they allowed to laugh?

Mike Birbiglia on why he finds comedy in difficult places, including his dad’s stroke.

Along the way, he gives a good tip on how to massage a dark bit:

When I was a kid, he’d sometimes fly off the handle. So in my special, I make the joke that the silver lining is that as horrible as the stroke has been, “if I’m being completely honest, it has calmed him down.”

One night, after I made that extremely dark joke, the audience didn’t know how to feel about it. It sort of sat there. I think the audience thought, Are we allowed to laugh about this guy’s ailing father? So I improvised a line: “Most of the jokes tonight are for you, but some of the jokes are for me. This is a coping mechanism. And I hope it is for you too.” That lit up the crowd. There was an acknowledgment that this was something I was really grappling with.

I’ve been doing comedy professionally for 23 years, and I’m just starting to realize that comedy is the coping mechanism I developed in my childhood. When I’m performing, I’m sharing that tool with my audience. I’m basically saying: “Here. Maybe use this.”

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Over the years I’ve made jokes about my life-threatening sleep disorder, my bladder cancer when I was 20, my breakups. Basically, my lowest moments. My goal is to find the comedy in the most challenging situations. If you can discover the laughs in those dark places, your bond with the audience is deeper.

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