The job of a comedian is obviously to entertain the audience. But sometimes comics do a show just for themselves, audience be hanged.
That was the frame of mind Julia Sweeney was in late last winter in Aspen, Colo. The occasion was to tape two shows for Comedy Central’s “Pulp Comics” standup series, where comedians interspread their stage performance with filmed pieces. Sweeney and Margaret Cho were appearing as part of the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival.
The audience’s response to Sweeney was lukewarm at best. She was expecting that.
“I realized it was going to be risky because I’ve performed in Aspen before, and that was when I was doing stuff about my family,” Sweeney said in an empty hotel restaurant in the swanky ski resort the day after her two taped performances.
Sweeney, the former NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” player, has also acted out her struggles with cancer in her well-received one-woman show “God Said `Ha!’ “
For her “Pulp Comics” sets, Sweeney, 38, wanted to base her act on religion, of which she is an avid student. Among the bits was one about kids who dressed up in costumes as various saints and another about St. Paul working as a publicist for Jesus Christ.
You had to be there.
Sweeney, who has performed for about 13 years, knew the touchy subject matter wouldn’t be “a laugh riot.” But Sweeney, who came up through Los Angeles’ Groundlings sketch comedy troupe, had to be true to herself and the material.
“It’s something I’m more interested in anyway,” Sweeney explained. “I’m not going to get up there and do a bunch of sex jokes and stuff. I’m not going to do easy stuff. I’m not saying that I don’t think people who do that aren’t talented. But it’s just completely not my style.”
Sweeney, who created the gender-challenged character Pat on “SNL,” also thought the audience could have been thrown because they might have been expecting a steady stream of jokes along the lines of Cho and warmup act Bob Zany.
Sweeney, however, told stories and allowed the situations to provide the laughs, as oppose to a rapid-fire procession of gags. Sometimes those laugh-generating lines didn’t pop up for a minute or two. Also, Sweeney wasn’t as aggressive as the other comics.
That also is simply not her style.
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“What I realized,” Sweeney said, “was that I’m not really a standup. My rhythms aren’t like that, I don’t say things like that, I don’t have punchlines or anything.”
When Sweeney’s “Pulp Comics” set airs next week on Comedy Central, it won’t look as if she had a difficult set. Only 12 minutes of standup material will be used. The rest of the time will be filled with filmed bits that merge within the context of her bent on religion.
“What I wanted to do was create 30 minutes that really was a whole theme,” said Sweeney, who originally wanted to take a cross-country train ride and let comedy material come to her along the way.
But she realized that in listening to monologues she did at the Un-Cabaret, a Los Angeles showcase for more experimental, or alternative, comedy, religion was a recurring theme.
“It just became clear to me that I do have a bigger interest in that topic,” Sweeney said.
Sweeney won’t be touring the chain of Chucklehead’s Comedy Huts with monologues on religion, however. She has found a new calling in life:
Sitcoms?
“I’m good in a sitcom,” she insisted. The calling came earlier this year, when she joined a comedy for the first time, with the now-canceled CBS comedy “George & Leo.” She called it “the easiest, most satisfying job I’ve ever had in Hollywood.”
“I can get the comedic material and I can make the material work,” said Sweeney, who presently doesn’t have a TV comedy in the works, but has guest-starred on “3rd Rock from the Sun,” “Hope & Gloria” and “Mad About You.”
She would make a great addition, if there are any television producers looking to cast someone as the goofy best friend or office worker.
Julia Sweeney performs on “Pulp Comics” at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday on Comedy Central as part of a weeklong salute to the cable network’s comedy storytelling series (Margaret Cho’s appearance is scheduled for Wednesday).
The standup lineup
Here’s who’s working at the comedy clubs. Current sets are scheduled to run through Sunday; all new acts begin on Wednesday unless otherwise noted. Lineups are subject to change.
– Jonathan Slocumb, T.K. Kirkland, Rodney Winfield and the mighty George Willborn are among the acts scheduled to show up for All Jokes Aside’s final week. The club, which is ceasing operations after 7 years on Aug. 9, is closing out with a festival of laughs starting Wednesday. The club is at 1000 S. Wabash Ave.; call 312-922-0577 for more information.
– Appearing at Zanies (1548 N. Wells St.; 312-337-4027) on Thursday is Dave Coulier, former star of ABC’s “Full House” and “America’s Funniest People,” whose standup is a little tougher than the candy-coated humor evident on those programs.