Sarah Silverman has always leaned towards the blue side of stand-up mining every topic from sex to drugs to religion for golden punchlines. With A Speck of Dust, Silverman’s latest comedy special which premiered on Netflix on May 30, she finds a new more philosophical shade of blue as life, death, love and family serve as hilarious inspirations throughout the subsequent 71-minutes of congenial comedy.
We are all just “a speck of dust on a speck of dust on a speck of dust hurling through nothing,” Silverman said during a twisting, turning bit about people-watching (and judging) in Los Angeles, where the special was filmed. Her tranquil, introspective attitude may be attributed to a risky throat surgery that she recently endured or perhaps Silverman is simply over the faux glitz and glamour of Hollywood. Many times during A Speck of Dust, she pulled back the curtain on show business revealing the not-so-glamorous realities of filming a hit TV show and the traumatic beauty procedures actresses regularly subject themselves to in order to be camera ready.
The pending death of her rescue dog, latent realizations about her childhood and the proper technique to use when greeting a person who has a hook for a hand all provided hilarity both on the surface and deep in the inner crevasses of each joke. A true story about her sister and a night of heavy drinking led to the creation of a new comedy term, “relief laugh,” as Silverman veered the punchline out of harm’s way at the very last moment much to the crowd’s delight.
Audience interaction and crowd work were perfectly peppered throughout A Speck of Dust. “I’m your show, but you’re my show,” Silverman said as she analyzed and enjoyed the crowd’s collective reaction to the above-mentioned sister story. Later, she complimented and critiqued a fan’s level of enthusiasm and brought a male audience member up to the front of the house to ask him one of life’s “big questions.”
Silverman has developed an earnestness that is not only inviting, but it also allows fans to be carried along throughout her hilarious tales no matter how simple or outlandish. It’s why she is able to create a “relief laugh” and why fans stay on her side even when she has fun with wordplay with some well-crafted abortion jokes – a guaranteed mine field in the hands of almost any other comedian. With A Speck of Dust, Silverman remains the cutting-edge comedian we first flocked to in the 1990s with added layers of nuanced complexities that have made her the legend fans love even more today.
Head over to Netflix to stream A Speck of Dust and follow Silverman on Twitter to stay up-to-date with her latest tour announcements.