Rising comic Haddish puts on memorable show at Riverside
The year is just getting started, but Tiffany Haddish told a Milwaukee audience Thursday that her 2018 is already phenomenal.
Her show at the Riverside Theater was phenomenal too. Actually, it’s impossible to imagine any comedian coming close to topping it this year.
The 38-year-old Haddish had an amazing 2017 as well, with a star-making role as Dina in the blockbuster comedy “Girls Trip,” followed by a Showtime special, a winning “Saturday Night Live” hosting gig and a bestselling book.
Sidesplitting as the fearless Haddish was in “Girls Trip” — getting into profane shouting matches, tripping out on absinthe — she was even more hysterical in the driver’s seat at the Riverside.
I laughed hard. I cried from laughing. I laughed so hard and smiled so wide my face hurt halfway through the 70-minute-set — and I still couldn’t stop laughing.
But I got it easy. The woman next to me laughed so hard she started violently hacking — twice.
With jokes coming rapid-fire, frequently without a thread connecting them, you couldn’t call Haddish a polished stand-up. But that’s a big reason why she was such a blast. It felt like anything could be said at any moment, and based on the abundant ad-libbing and interactions with the audience, it’s clear Haddish didn’t know everything she was going to say either.
What she did say was often unabashedly explicit. There was a revenge-fantasy monologue she improvised for “Girls Trip” that was too extreme even for that hard-R-rated movie. Let’s just say it involved Ambien, salt, mud and a branding iron.
Sure, these bits were crass, but it wasn’t so much the shock value as Haddish’s infectious intensity that made them so hilarious.
Haddish’s engaging imagination also emerged in some tamer, equally funny moments — like when she contemplated some savvy payback against cheating boyfriends involving crickets, centipedes and ruined pants. And Haddish made herself laugh revealing her amusingly bizarre romantic fantasy: to be so wealthy she could travel the world, and every time she’d return home, her boyfriend would be replaced by a different person from black history.
The reason she found that ideal, she explained, was because she thought nothing was sexier than knowledge. And it was clear by the end of her set that she wanted to do more than make people laugh — she wanted to make them think.
Unlike her Showtime special, Haddish’s set Thursday didn’t focus too much on her past — even though she could have gotten away with repeating much of that material. She faced incredible challenges growing up, including living in foster care. Just a few years ago, she was homeless.
Which is why Haddish’s ability to make people laugh was more than just entertaining Thursday. It was also inspiring, the way she marveled at the theater, her phone, even her microphone, and how human imagination and skill made them all possible. And she promoted positivity with the compelling conviction of a woman whose incredible attitude got her through some terrible times.
She ended her set comically cursing the near-capacity crowd “with all the happiness and joy that you can (expletive) handle.” It’s a blessing that Haddish, too, has been cursed with so much joy. May she never be cured.