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The Charleston Special

Rory Scovel

VHX · 2016 · 58 min

A loose, highly meta hour that breaks the rules of stand-up.

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Rory Scovel wants you to know that the stand-up special you are watching on a screen is inherently worse than the one the live audience experienced. Throughout his debut hour, he goes out of his way to dismantle the illusion of the polished stand-up hour, treating the stage at the Woolfe Street Playhouse like a playroom rather than a gallery. He talks to the crowd, reacts to passing sirens, cuts his finger, and delivers jokes alongside a professional keyboard player despite not knowing how to play the instrument himself.

Directed by Scott Moran and self-produced with a crew of close friends, the special was released in early 2016 as a flagship offering for NBC’s short-lived comedy streaming service, Seeso. Scovel, then a rising character actor on shows like Ground Floor and Those Who Can’t, brings a loose, theatrical energy to the stage. Moran’s direction embraces the chaos, inserting mock title cards, cutting to “21 minutes later” jumps, and transitioning from a cinematic black-and-white intro into a warm, sepia-toned room. Rather than a series of tight setups and punchlines, the show relies on Scovel’s willingness to commit to bits until they become funny, then uncomfortable, and then funny again.

The set list

4 bits

  1. Charleston's obsession with its history and horse-drawn carriages

    Ridiculing paying thirty dollars to learn history at a crawl while a horse shits in your face, suggesting walking alongside the carriage instead.

  2. People who brag about surviving colder weather in the past

    Mocking people who dismiss cold temperatures by claiming to have survived a blizzard in August 1982 where birds froze in midair, sarcastically pitching it as a one-man show titled 'That’s The Year We Ate Those Birds.'

  3. Personifying the days of the week

    Illustrates how people over 29 can no longer treat Thursday like the weekend, staging an imaginary dialogue between Thursday, Friday, Wednesday, Tuesday, and Monday.

  4. Adam and Steve vs. Adam and Eve

    Argues that if God made Adam and Steve, Steve would have possessed the common sense not to converse with a talking snake.

How it plays

Tone
Absurdist, self-aware, and irreverent
On stage
Spontaneous, absurd, meta-aware, and highly experimental with an eagerness to play with expectations and the conventions of the medium.
Pace
Extremely loose and unpredictable, shifting from deadpan banter and sprawling on the stage floor to manic character bursts.
About
Charleston history and carriage tours, Cold weather and conversational one-upmanship, Aging and not going out on Thursdays, Days of the week, Religion and biblical stories

What the critics said

Praised as an engrossing, innovative, and hilarious hour that showcases Scovel's loose, improvisational brilliance, though critics noted its meta deviations and derailments might bewilder audiences unfamiliar with his style.

In the room: Bathed in warm, sepia-toned ambiance while reacting to an increasingly chaotic and spontaneous performance.

Summed up from reviews, articles and listings. Sources: thecomicscomic.com, scrapsfromtheloft.com, themoviedb.org, vulture.com, letterboxd.com, en.wikipedia.org, alisonrosen.com, nytimes.com.

Backstory

Filmed in Charleston, South Carolina, returning to Scovel's home state; produced entirely by Scovel and a crew of his closest friends (from building sets to hanging lights), and served as a launch title for the streaming comedy subscription service Seeso.

Details

Released
Taped
2015, Woolfe Street Playhouse, Charleston
Runtime
58 min
Where
VHX
Director
Scott Moran
Honors
Ranked #5 on Vulture's 'The 10 Best Stand-up Comedy Specials of 2016'
Topics
Before
The Half Hour (2012)
After
Rory Scovel Tries Stand-Up for the First Time (2017)

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