She Ready! From the Hood to Hollywood!
Showtime · 2017 · 65 min
High-energy personal storytelling from a newly minted Hollywood star.
Tiffany Haddish performs with a physical style that works best when she’s telling highly specific, borderline unbelievable autobiographical stories. The centerpiece of this hour is her recounting of taking Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith on a swamp tour in New Orleans using a discount Groupon. Haddish plays both herself and her bewildered celebrity companions with animated intensity, leaning on her expressive facial expressions and contorted posture to sell every beat of the bizarre outing.
Filmed at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles, this 2017 Showtime special arrived at a pivotal moment in Haddish’s career. Released just after her breakout performance in the film Girls Trip, the hour serves as an introduction of her theatrical stage presence to a mainstream audience. She recounts her upbringing in South Central, including her experiences in the foster care system, playground tetherball bullies, and getting revenge on cheating ex-boyfriends, bringing each memory to life with physical movement and a rubbery face.
The set list
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Groupon swamp tour with Will and Jada Pinkett Smith
Contrasts the Pinkett Smiths' immense wealth with her own thrifty reality by taking them on a budget airboat excursion in New Orleans.
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Grade school bully Kiyosha
Recounts being denied a game of tetherball because she did not have a mother and father present.
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Time in foster care and family tragedy
Finds comedy in surviving 'the system' and learning about her stepfather cutting the brakes on the family car.
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Domestic violence altercation with husband/stalker
Recalls being viciously choked after spotting a suspicious text message on his phone, and continuing to interrogate him in a hoarse, strained voice.
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Grandmother's lecture on promiscuity
Uses sharp facial contortions and physical impressions to enact her grandmother's warnings about boys.
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Checking 'white' on the census exam
Jokes about assuming a white identity and jokingly planning to lead the KKK.
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Kevin Hart and the $300 loan
Discusses her struggles with homelessness and how Kevin Hart helped change her life.
How it plays
- Tone
- Riotous, irreverent, filthy, and emotionally raw yet celebratory and positive.
- On stage
- Intensely physical, warm, unpretentious, candid, and gregarious; embraces vulgar, bawdy material while maintaining radiant, joyful charisma and expressive facial contortions.
- Pace
- Fast-paced and high-energy, literally dancing onto the stage (crip walking and nae-nae'ing) and animating stories through dynamic full-body physical clowning.
- About
- Foster care and 'the system', Childhood bullying, Domestic abuse and toxic relationships, Poverty and homelessness, Rise to Hollywood fame, Celebrity encounters
What the critics said
Praised as an ambitious debut showcasing exceptional physicality, natural warmth, and vivid storytelling, though some critics felt certain punchlines were overshadowed by genuine trauma or suffered from audience overfamiliarity due to her extensive media appearances.
In the room: Energetic and supportive, cheering enthusiastically for her success though occasionally falling silent during darker revelations about foster care and trauma.
Backstory
Reflects Haddish's tumultuous personal background growing up in South Central Los Angeles, surviving severe family trauma, foster care, abusive relationships, and homelessness before breaking into Hollywood.
Details
- Released
- Taped
- Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles
- Runtime
- 65 min
- Where
- Showtime
- Director
- Chris Robinson
- Topics
- After
- Black Mitzvah (2019)
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Black Mitzvah
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