Stage Fright
Netflix · 2019 · 66 min
A neurotic, charmingly theatrical hybrid of stand-up and home movie.
Jenny Slate does not try to hide how terrified she is of being on stage. Instead, she structures her entire first comedy special around that exact performance anxiety, breaking up her theatrical stand-up set with intimate documentary footage filmed at her childhood home. The resulting mix of media serves to show her eccentricity rather than just tell jokes about it, giving the performance a scattered rhythm that mirrors her real-life neuroses.
Filmed at the Gramercy Theatre in New York, the special was directed by Gillian Robespierre, Slate’s long-time collaborator from Obvious Child and Landline. At this point in her career, Slate was well-known for her voice acting and indie film roles, but she had never released a full-length stand-up hour. By blending standard stage time with documentary segments, she bypasses the conventional stand-up template. She interviews her grandmothers, tours her allegedly haunted childhood home with her father, and reads from a teenage “feelings box” full of dramatic, adolescent diary entries.
On stage, Slate wears a loose silk tuxedo, pacing and leaping around with an anxious, high-energy theatricality. She speaks frankly about her divorce, the absurdity of Hollywood demanding that actresses look like Timothée Chalamet while remaining fertile, and the specific indignity of being named Jenny instead of Jennifer. While the shifting format occasionally disrupts the momentum of her stage material, the documentary segments offer a weird, specific context for her onstage eccentricities.
The set list
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Being named Jenny rather than Jennifer or Susan
Reflecting on how being named Jenny doomed her to a goofy, bouncy persona, whereas if named Susan she would be a cool, badass broad who enters rooms with a karate kick.
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Haunted childhood house in Massachusetts
Recounting the terror of waking up in the middle of the night to wake up her mother in a house her family believes was genuinely haunted.
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Football and jock culture fanfiction
Imagining NFL players like Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski as best friends who hold hands in locker rooms, chase after a toy in matching outfits, and wear protective cups on their tender anatomy.
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Hollywood physical standards for actresses
Joking that Hollywood executives expect women to look long and lean with the physique of Timothee Chalamet while still wanting to bear children.
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Post-divorce blind date in armor
Describing being set up on a blind date by friends with a man who took the concept of a white knight literally by showing up in a full suit of armor.
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Masturbating to the moon
A bittersweet, loony, and deeply personal sexual anecdote involving her connection to the moon.
How it plays
- Tone
- Intimate, goofy, poignant, vulnerable, and absurd.
- On stage
- Voluble, bubbly, daffy, and neurotic; balancing childlike silliness with frank sexuality and vulnerable self-awareness.
- Pace
- High-energy and rapid-fire, characterized by physical bounces, screams, expressive facial gestures, and nervous momentum.
- About
- stage fright and performance anxiety, divorce and dating, childhood and family roots, fashion and the joy of getting dressed, Hollywood body standards, haunted childhood home
What the critics said
Widely acclaimed as a warm, funny, and deeply personal special that successfully pairs theatrical stand-up comedy with documentary introspection into her family and neuroses.
In the room: Enthusiastic and warm, responding with loud laughter and cheers to her confessional material.
Backstory
Retreating to her childhood home in Milton, Massachusetts in the wake of divorce and navigating severe performance anxiety and public scrutiny following her departure from Saturday Night Live.
Details
- Released
- Taped
- Gramercy Theatre, New York City
- Runtime
- 66 min
- Where
- Netflix
- Director
- Gillian Robespierre
- Topics
- After
- Seasoned Professional (2024)
More from Jenny Slate
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Seasoned Professional
Prime Video
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