Overwhelmed

Ray Harrington steps on stage with the physical presence of a giant and the exhaustion of a new father, using his self-deprecating charm to make the heavy load of modern domesticity feel light. His material focuses on the crushing tiredness of raising a toddler while maintaining some shred of personal dignity. He is at his most engaging when he pivots into the absurd, particularly during a detailed breakdown of who would win a hypothetical fistfight between Anne Frank and Helen Keller, or when he takes aim at the active pointlessness of camping.

The performance was recorded in April 2017 at the Rockwell in Somerville, Massachusetts, and released as an audio album by Stand Up! Records later that September. At the time, Harrington was juggling multiple creative fronts, having recently completed his documentary Be a Man. The strain of making a film while dealing with a young child fed directly into the theme of the hour, which went on to top the Amazon comedy charts and peak at number 15 on Billboard’s comedy album chart.