“I’m seeing a shrink. We’re good.”
With two sentences, Chris Gethard begins one of the best comedy specials I have ever seen. He straddles the line between comedy and baring the darkest parts of his soul, minute by minute. When I watched “Chris Gethard: Career Suicide” I had the amazing sensation of seeing something iconic for the very first time.
Some people who are not comedy fans may have never heard of Gethard. They will probably have seen him, though. His most famous roles are as Dwight’s friend Trevor on “The Office” and as Todd on “Broad City.” But this special has the potential to introduce Gethard to a wider audience.
“Chris Gethard: Career Suicide,” which airs on May 6 at 10:00pm on HBO, is his most autobiographical work to date. For 90 minutes, Gethard touches on everything from his depression to his passionate love of The Smiths. His impeccable timing and eye for idiosyncratic details bring out the humor in the darkest of situations.
This show is very different from Gethard’s longtime project “The Chris Gethard Show.” “That series begins its third season on truTV later this year, and it is much brighter and more absurdist. But in a group interview with the IDS, Gethard pointed out that these two projects share the same impulse of doing something wild to get an honest reaction from his audiences. He attributed this desire to his love for the late Andy Kaufman.
His latest Judd Apatow-produced special feels like the culmination of Gethard’s career so far. He is a long time improvisational performer at the UCB Theater in New York City, which makes sense considering his many riffs on audience reactions. The more intense moments show Gethard's talent for dramatic performance, which led his friend Mike Birbiglia to cast him in “Don’t Think Twice.”
Those moments are enhanced by some brilliant tight close-ups. Gethard said that making the special an intimate experience was important to him. Director Kimberly Senior supported his vision by using a lot of close-ups for the more serious moments in the show. This led to a more personal experience than the Off-Broadway show, because you would not have noticed those moments if you were in the back of the theater.
One of the things I like about Gethard is his generosity. He recently shot a video about depression featuring fellow comedians, which he hoped would spark discussions about mental health. He constantly expresses a desire to help younger comics so they don’t have to struggle as long as he did. He named Julios Torres, Brett Davis and Connor Ratliff as some comedians to watch.
Gethard’s own career has been transformed by generosity. He got his role on “Broad City” because he was Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer’s improv teacher. He recalled how he couldn’t believe that comedy maven Apatow emailed the president of HBO to facilitate the filming of “Career Suicide.”
At one point, Gethard thought about what Smiths lyric would best describe his life now. He said that not having enough clothes to go to premieres reminded him of the lyric “I would go out tonight but I haven’t got a stitch to wear.” He talked about a song called “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” and reflected on the song’s description of “people who feel so very lonely, their only desire is to die.”
But for me, the best lyric that describes Gethard’s new special can be found in a song by The Smiths called “Frankly Mr. Shankly.” That is because I firmly believe that Gethard’s latest work will “go down in celluloid history.”
