Mad Entertaining!
PIT show starring Mark Giordano frames
being 40 in the context of glorified bachelorhood
By
Bethany Trottier / Jester Correspondent; photo credit: Anya
Garrett
Inspired by the retro 60s cool of “Mad Men,” Mark Giordano’s
“Mad Man,” presents the funniest midlife crisis ever, kicking
off with swinging pop music and its star delivering a witty, Rat
Pack-inspired rant while clutching a frosty martini at center
stage. The show concluded its recent run at the People’s Improv
Theater in a show seen Sept. 29, but will return in November.
In his opening, Giordano tells the audience most of his friends
are of the “alcoholish” sort. He adores the liquid which quells
the self loathing of being an adult in a culture that encourages
perpetual adolescence. The hangover heightens the awareness of
the loathing when the next day brings clarity. For as much as
our narrator derides more juvenile aspects of our culture – Real
Housewives franchise, anyone? – he also very much yearns to be
part of the program where people settle down and live together
in nice little nuclear families. Single at 40, Girodano feels
deeply abnormal. In fact, he feels that his young nephew even
suspects some buried awfulness lurking because he identifies
superman’s fortress of solitude as being “like Uncle Mark’s
apartment.”
Thus “clarity sucks!” and the rest of your time there you will
be on the receiving end of clarity as Mark sees it. Whether you
are a middle-aged dad strapping your baby son into a car whilst
sporting a Che Guevara t-shirt or if you think 40 is the new 30,
Mark is here to let you know how incredibly, willfully deluded
you are. His topics veer from religion – he describes his family
as “Cathol-ish,” to dating – dishing out some specialized dating
etiquette aimed at both men and women -- to how we need to grow
up as a culture because not everybody deserves a trophy just for
showing up.
The show is broken up into four vignettes and each portion gets
its own symbolic liquor. The live stuff is punctuated with
little films of a hilarious puppet alter ego, sitting at a bar
having a one-sided conversation with his regular bartender. The
pacing is great, the show is very smooth and our narrator is as
strong in his performance as his opinions. All of the show is
stylized in that “Rat Pack” fashion. I find it fascinating that
many people, including the performer of this show, seem to
identify the early 1960’s culture as the last moment that anyone
can remember when adults held sway – for better or for worse.
The last moment of the show leaves you with this comforting,
clarifying thought -- no one knows what they are doing! Believe
in yourself, because no one knows a goddamn thing, as Mark says.
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