Los Angeles-based actor and stand up comedian Chris D’elia, largely known for his appearances on Comedy Central, performed new material at McDonald’s Theater in downtown Eugene Sunday night. Both him and his opener Jason Collings supplied the audience with the laughter that was probably well needed before yet another tiresome school and work week.
D’elia, who started out his comedic career in laundromats and run-down bars, casually strides onto the stage and immediately makes his ability to anticipate and satirize audience reaction clear by pointing at cell phones in the crowd to be put away so his new material isn’t spread on social media. D’elia immediately wins over the crowd with his commenting on the weather in Eugene, exclaiming, “It’s cold as shit man! No! Don’t cheer for that. You open the door and are like no, fuck it! I don’t want any of it.”
However, the height of the act was when he reached the topics of over dramatic girls and sex, which he is known for mastering conversation about under a comedic light. D’elia puts on his stereotypical spacey girl voice, looks at the crowd, and says “I’ve literally been running around all day,” changes character and responds “No you fucking haven’t!” As if his point wasn’t made initially, he proceeds to run around the stage chanting “la la la la la!” to demonstrate what running around all day would literally be like. Again, striking a chord with the already engaged and satisfied crowd.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s all in the angle from which he approaches these topics. He successfully brings these topics to a line, dances around them for a bit, and then blatantly passes it into a realm of laughable exaggeration. It was always unclear where he was going with something simply based on his starting point, which in my opinion, is huge. This way, the joke comes in like a punch – unexpected and hard-hitting.
It’s often difficult to put your finger on what makes one comedian more well-received than another, but with D’elia, I think it’s the nuances that worked as a cherry on top to his already hilarious material. Minor additions such as his wild facial expressions, with unpredictable eyebrow movements and bug eyes, that would play up stories he would recite. Also, his physical mannerisms truly exemplified just how ridiculous some of his material was, only in the best possible way. Hands flailing above the head, chest puffed up and chin down when he was pretending to be Russian, and of course his long, lanky legs flapping open and closed again to complement his discussions of sex. There are many more nuances that I’m sure have slipped my mind, but the last and perhaps most significant one that made me exhaust myself of laughter was D’elia’s laughing at his own jokes. You could say he has a contagious laugh, but really, it’s more of a cackle, a “EH HEH HEH!” if you will, that was both terrifying and glorious simultaneously.
Whether he was laughing at his own jokes or spending fifteen minutes telling a story about an orange (not pink) shirt, D’elia’s new material was well taken by the crowd at McDonald’s. His strength as a comedian is likely due to his comfort on stage and with the audience. It was difficult to tell the difference between his improv and rehearsed subject matter and I was surprised one or two times when he revealed that he didn’t plan to talk about a certain topic because of its sheer hilarity and casualness of which it was brought about.
If you want more of D’elia, I recommend following D’elia on twitter @chrisdelia and checking out his new show on NBC called Undateable.
Follow Ghoncheh Azadeh on Twitter @GhonchehAzadeh