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Last March, the arrival of HBO Max in the Netherlands opened a new gateway to the American comedy world. A recent addition to the American streaming service is the new show by Jerrod Carmichael (35), who became known for a sitcom about his fictionalized family in North Carolina (The Carmichael show† Even more homely, Carmichael hopes to make it in Rothaniel, and at the beginning of the show he asks his audience to contribute. Carmichael wants to talk about a sensitive subject: secrets.
His family was full of it, with “things that exist and yet do not exist.” The existence of secrets was known, but they were not talked about. Carmichael has some great career advice if you want to cheat on your crush: become a truck driver. It was his father Joe, Friday evening he went ‘on the road’ in his nice suit in a smoke of eau de cologne. As a child, Carmichael knew about his father’s adultery, but he was afraid to share this information. The fate that awaits you then: a sense of complicity.
Rothaniel is exciting because Carmichael exposes himself in such a way that it almost becomes uncomfortable. Almost, not too much: with iron timing, Carmichael breaks the tension every now and then with a hard joke. That contrast between seriousness and humor works well, humor is also a release. For example, one can laugh with relief when Carmichael explains in between why he laughs so often: “If I don’t laugh, I look like the killer of Malcolm X.”
‘Meaningful’ Silences
The performance is a kind of confession: seated on a stool in the famous, dim jazz club Blue Note in New York, Carmichael calmly tells how secrets can run through a family for generations. The feeling of looking at a confession is reinforced by the fact that he talks with his head bowed: confession is sometimes difficult for him. And after an outpouring, he sometimes looks into the room with twinkling eyes.
One confidence is that he likes men, something Carmichael himself had a hard time accepting for a long time. So does his mother, who tries to ‘pray away’ his homosexuality every night. Reassurance comes from an unexpected source; of his adulterous father, who manages to neutralize his own sins. “Doesn’t matter, I screwed up, you screwed up,” he told his son, who has just come out.
Carmichael doesn’t leave his stool, but invites the audience to interrupt him. The questions he gets are not the easiest: would he have preferred not to tell his mother about his homosexuality afterwards? Can he become happy without his parents accepting him completely? Carmichael takes all questions seriously and does not hesitate to think first.
Sometimes he messes things up with his ‘meaningful’ silences, but those are the exceptions. In Rothaniel total sincerity prevails, making the show very different from most stand-up comedy.
Jerrod Carmichael’s approach also exposes a remarkable discrepancy: the more personal you make something, the more universal it simultaneously becomes. Secrets make you a little sick, he teaches us. He himself was literally the product of secrets, so a final revelation follows at the end of this special performance.
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