In these highly unfunny times (that got even less funny this November), New York Comedy Festival still brought comics to try to make the Big Apple laugh. One of the leading new voices is Brittany Brave, who came up from Miami with friends Brandon Barrera, Ricky Cruz, and Eli Rodriguez in tow to play The Asylum on Thursday, November 14th.
While from south Florida, Brave is no stranger to New York City, having lived here for years. A trip to visit her parents in Miami in 2020 became permanent because of the COVID lockdown, and she was able to exercise her stand-up down there. She’s since made it a full career, throwing her own comedy nights, touring the country (including places redder than Trump’s adopted home state), and now putting together a documentary on her local scene.
That documentary opened the night, the first ten minutes of the still-raw film, the first that it’s been seen outside of Miami. Ten minutes was the right length, enough to get a taste of it, while not making people wait too long for live comedy. It also featured her parents, who got huge applause – Brave said that she messaged her mother backstage when that happened, and now Mrs. Brave has gone all diva…
The set-up at The Asylum wasn’t the circular cocktail tables with a stage and fake brick backdrop that you might remember from the eighties stand-up boom, but rather the comics were on the same floor as the crowd’s chairs (though there were some raised seats in the back), flanking the space on three sides (there also weren’t waitresses that you could flag down for another drink). Some people that the venue’s staff sat up front didn’t think that they could take the heat, moving to the back, leaving a few random empty chairs up front [your correspondent wasn’t one of them, taking being the subject of a few jokes like a true hero…].
Opening the night of Miami comedy was the MC, Elly Rodriguez. She gamely noted that she’s old enough to be in her Depends era, but is still married. Rickie Cruz is newly divorced, and loves long titties. Meanwhile, the young Brandon Barrera is broke, but at least can make friends in the bathrooms of bars.
All three had jokes about Miami and Florida in general, a theme of the night. The other theme, as can be seen in just those brief descriptions, was some dirty comedy. Yes, it’s the twenty-first century and we’re all talking out loud about things once only whispered behind closed closet doors, but it was still notable. Perhaps it only shocks if you’re used to late night TV monologues and filmed mainstream stand-up specials, and sex is still taboo enough to be the richest of comedy veins, but it was still very much in your face (and other areas).
And this all was doubly true for Brittany Brave. She’s never shied away from sex comedy (see her web series, The Disastrous Dating Life of Diane Damone), but in particular she was able to stretch her sex comedy into other areas. There was politics with much about abortions (specifically NY vs. Florida laws), religion (the Italian-American naturally going after the Catholic Church), even physical humor – reenacting going through the too-fast rhythm of too many men that was a workout on stage. IUDs in particular got namechecked, Brave using the mikestand to impersonate an old guy with a metal detector going over her on the beach and getting some beeps.
Being on the same level as the crowd meant a good deal of crowd work (as well as noticing Brave’s short stature). There were at least three cute couples up front who got everything from praise to speculation about their sex lives. But the audience ranged from some sex-positive, no-birth control women to frat boys, though not enough gays (Brave did speculate about one guy up front, trying to coax him out of the closet by noting that she lets gay guys “do anything…”). There were even the requisite few guys who didn’t seem to be having the best time – when Brave asked one guy up front (who seemingly hadn’t laughed throughout) if he was having a good time, he replied, “Sure,” an almost pitch-perfect non-complimentary ‘compliment’, which Brave admitted would haunt her for the rest of her life…
And it wasn’t all sex & fans. Brave had her own Florida jokes, from its red state-ness to Miami’s Spanish-ness (trying to get a Plan B from a pharmacist who no habla ingles), but also her NYC jokes. Big Apple comedy is an art form all its own, and Brave deployed them well, such as not just a bodega rat but the bodega owner’s non-plussed reaction to one (“We are all rats…”). Your correspondent particularly liked the jokes about blaming specific alcohols for her drunken acts [yes, she noted him laughing a bit too hard…]. And yes, she had some Trump/election jokes, asking the crowd if it was okay or still too soon, later admitting it wasn’t best to do them near the end.
Brave is actually moving back to NYC, having signed her lease just days after the election (glad somebody was having a good week…), so expect more comedy in these dark times.
