Cross blurs the fine line between humour, anger
“I’ve learned that one should never be surprised or pre-judge a place.”
David Cross is talking about audience reactions to his Making America Great Again! tour. By the time he comes off the road, he’ll have visited 75 cities in the U.S., Canada and Europe. His comments on the present climate for his brand of politically engaged standup feel pertinent.
“I would say that, at almost every show so far there were a fair number of people who didn’t agree with what I was saying, even to the point of walking out, some quite vocally,” says the Georgia-born 52-year-old. “Nobody has a problem with my observation that there are luggage stores in airports, but the (Donald) Trump stuff, the gun control stuff, the religion stuff — if somebody’s angrily sitting through the first two, by the third they might say, ‘I’ve had enough.’ ”
Landing on the right tone for a topical show can be a challenge, especially when addressing a subject as contentious as Trump. Is there a point at which angry humour can tip over into just plain anger?
“Yes, and I do have to be careful of that, although it’s not anger so much as exasperation. If you’re exasperated, you’re not at your most articulate.”
Cross’ current standup trek represents a return to his roots: he’s had a multifarious career. Different people know him for different things, among which his role in the dysfunctional-family sitcom Arrested Development is probably the most famous.
But it’s the earlier Mr. Show, the sketch comedy he co-created with Bob Odenkirk, that might prove to have the legs. A cult item at best when it was new, the show has, at its own word of mouth pace, grown into an American equivalent of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. If you haven’t yet come across someone at a party who can quote whole sketches from memory, don’t worry, you will.
“It was a good show,” Cross said. “I think it holds up for a number of reasons. One is that we never did specific parodies — it was never, say, a sketch about Paris Hilton, it would be a sketch about the idea of what creates Paris Hilton. It doesn’t date in the way an SNL (Saturday Night Live) sketch from that time might.”
Another Cross project is the culture-clash comedy The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, starring Cross as the titular American abroad in England. It’s been under-appreciated so far, but its standing, you suspect, will grow.
Coincidentally, Cross was touring in the U.K. when the Brexit vote happened.
“It was a strange, shocking thing — akin, I would imagine, to waking up to find Donald Trump had been elected,” he said. “People were like, ‘What did we just do?’ I think it’s only now sinking in that there’s no do-over.” So, can Trump really win? “Oh, absolutely he can. There’s not a doubt in my mind.”