Old Baby

Maria Bamford starts her 2017 Netflix special in the most private space possible: staring directly into a mirror, performing only for herself. Directed by Jessica Yu, Old Baby does not stay there. Instead, the hour unfolds as a series of performances before increasingly larger and more public audiences, all filmed around Bamford’s own neighborhood in Los Angeles.

She graduates from the mirror to her husband and their pugs on a couch, then moves to a few friends on a park bench, a crowded bookstore aisle, a bowling alley, and finally a traditional theater. Yu cuts these disparate sets together so cleanly that Bamford’s rapid transitions and impressions remain completely uninterrupted.

This was Bamford’s first hour-long stand-up release after the premiere of her surreal comedy series Lady Dynamite, and it finds her working with a similar interest in structural fragmentation. Much of the material circles her marriage to artist Scott Marvel Cassidy. She compares the unlikely odds of finding love in middle age to the struggle of making it in show business, and contrasts the format of Say Yes to the Dress with a documentary on genocide. She also recounts a mortifying school Career Day appearance where the students labeled her a shaky, baby-like presence, which gifted her the special’s title.

Bamford’s performance is, as usual, a showcase of vocal shifts, changing perspectives, and an unusual level of candor about mental health. The progression of the venues acts as a metaphor for the process of coaxing a nervous performer out into the open. By the time she reaches the traditional stage, the intimacy of the earlier, empty rooms carries over, giving the final crowd-work bits a warm, cooperative energy.