Tig Notaro & Trevor Noah
Tig Notaro TigNotaro.com Courtesy
Five years ago, comedian Tig Notaro spun her hardships into humor with her still-cringeworthy standup bit “Hello, I Have Cancer,” in which she deadpanned her way through true tales of breakups, bacterial infections and the death of her mother. She also revealed her own breast cancer diagnosis with this one-liner: “Guys, relax, everything’s fine. I have cancer. OK, it might not be OK. I’m just saying.”
With unsparing honesty and a dry demeanor that barely registers as emotion, Notaro – Louis C.K. is widely credited with boosting her cred after seeing her “I Have Cancer” bit – has built a career on baring her personal scars. Sometimes literally: On her recent Emmy-nominated HBO special, “Boyish Girl Interrupted,” Notaro went topless, unbuttoning her shirt onstage to reveal double mastectomy scars. Notaro can fill an auditorium with Andy Kaufman-style unease and shock value, but her material feels more like an act of defiance than it does a pity party, veering from experimental to confessional so smoothly it smacks of a parody of her life. Notaro’s upcoming set June 3 at the Broward Center –she’s halfway through her 2017 tour – is her highest profile gig in South Florida.
Trevor Noah | Courtesy Kwaku Alston
Trevor Noah’s comedy profile has risen through similar stories of hardship, stemming from his racism-filled South African upbringing as the son of a black mother and white European father. Noah, who dropped his ninth comedy special “Afraid of the Dark” on Netflix in February, was raised in a poor household by women, who kept Noah indoors because it was illegal to be mixed-race under apartheid. Noah recalls this experience in his recent special “Trevor Noah: Lost in Translation” and also in his 2016 memoir, “Born a Crime,” but he’s just as accessible as host of the “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah,” where he keeps in his crosshairs the latest gaffes of the Trump presidency. Noah’s performance at the Kravis Center on June 18 will be his second local date in a year, after promoting his memoir last November at the Miami Book Fair.
Trevor Noah will perform 8 pm Saturday, June 3, at Kravis Center, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., in West Palm Beach. Kravis.org. Tig Notaro will perform 7:30 pm Sunday, June 18, at Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale. BrowardCenter.org.
~ John Doane
