The Beginning

Ellen DeGeneres steps onto the stage to open her set with an interpretive dance announcing she is gay, getting the media circus of the previous three years out of the way. The Beginning is exactly what the title promises. It is a return to the stand-up roots that built her career before her sitcom became a cultural flashpoint. The standout bit tackles the slippery slope argument against same-sex marriage, where she carefully maps out the logistical nightmare of dating and eventually marrying a goat.

Filmed at New York City’s Beacon Theatre in July 2000 and broadcast on HBO, this was her first tour since the cancellation of her television show in 1998. While she touches on the isolation that followed her public coming out, the bulk of the hour is straightforward observational comedy. She details the mundanity of shampoo bottle instructions, two flies meeting on a bathroom mirror, and the mechanics of filming sex scenes. It is a tightly constructed set from a professional reminding the room why they bought a ticket in the first place, long before she transitioned into daytime television.