Look. Everyone is doing their own things and there are all kinds of hilarious comedians out there. But it is clear: Kathleen Madigan has the lifestyle of a comedian down to an art.
She lives a little off the grid in the real world, only goes on the road when she really wants to and never writes down more than few words to make her material. But the minute she hits the stage, the room comes alive.
“I never write,” the veteran road comic shares. “Stuff happens, and I’ll write the words to remind myself. Or a thought will fly in my head and I’ll write a word. But I’ve never written out a joke. One time Lewis Black, my friend the comedian, he does a lot with that National Comedy Center and he said: “do you have any notes you could send them?” I said, ‘Lew, it would be a box full of bar napkins with one or two words, that wouldn’t make any sense.’ You’d also see the ring where my glass was and I was drinking when I thought of it and it would say ‘Amish Baker’ or something. No one, no, no one would get that.”
And yet – the material speaks for itself. Madigan is effortlessly hilarious, somehow both homespun and polished with admirers of all sorts. She’s the every woman, and the comic’s comic.
Madigan seems to imply that the secret to her success is no secret at all. “I think I lead a normal enough life, and that’s the key to it. Like I see people who get to my level and get assistants who do things for ‘em. Like Ron White, one of my best friends, he had assistants everywhere. I said ‘Isn’t this weird?’ He said, ‘for about five minutes, then you can’t live without it Kathleen.’ He likes it. But he doesn’t even go to Taco Bell anymore, he doesn’t do normal stuff. And he’s like ‘no, I’m gonna pay Rick to go to Taco Bell and write a joke and give it to me.’
“I prefer to do, but that’s why I can have jokes about the normal stuff I’m doing, because I’m just doing normal things. My brother once called me Sally Lunchbox. He’s a financial adviser and he said when he has clients that are just normal middle Americans, I call them Joe Sixpack and Sally Lunchbox. Normal people with a normal salary who do normal things, and I guess that’s not an insult.”
Madigan outlines the mixology that goes into the cocktail that is her act. “I am always usually talking about the same kinds of things: my family, traveling, a little bit of the news. I always try to mix it up, so I am doing old, new and a some kind of mishmash of all that because that’s the type of show I like to see. Like, sometimes I think about the show that is all new jokes, but I don’t really know anybody who does that except Seinfeld, where he threw out a whole act. I just keep adding and subtracting. But every joke is always up for use. Every single joke is on the roster and they can all bat!”
While Madigan is adept at connecting with her crowd, and reading the room as she goes through her act – she is quick to make clear that she is not “really into crowd work” – so audiences shouldn’t expect to be spotlighted. “That’s the new things with the kids on Instagram,” the comic says. “I mean, we spent years teaching people NOT to do that. Now you guys are encouraging it and now you are taking us all back to a one-nighter in a bar somewhere in Tennessee. Guys, what are we doing?”
“I feel the crowd and I know what they like and don’t like. I can tell. But as far as the one-on-one, that’s not me. There are people who are really good at it. Like Paula Poundstone is great at that, and she’s been doing it 40 years. Even young people tell me they don’t like it, they just say its what’s they feel like they should do because everybody is doing it. I’m like, Oh my God! Do I have to be your mother also and ask if everyone jumped off a bridge, would you also? It’s the thing now, but like everything else online, it will be the big thing for ten minutes or so before the next thing. You have to commit to the idea that I’m doing something here, not just where ever the wind blows today. You’ll be chasing your tail forever.”
It helps to be so rooted into your personality, as the affable Madigan clearly suffers few fools and puts on no airs. “99 percent or maybe even 100 percent of the stuff I say that happened in my act happened,” she explains. “Since it actually happened, like if it happened to you… say you had a weird experience at Starbucks and you want to tell someone, you can – because it happened. That’s why I don’t understand people who make up jokes out of thin air, that’s what I couldn’t do. I’m incapable of that.”
This is an interesting conversation for the comedy world at the moment, especially considering the recent flap for a high profile comedian seemingly losing frontrunner status to take over a talk show gig due to his material being slightly more embellished than the jokes alone would have you believe. Without naming names, Madigan offers her blunt perspective. “It is weird because a couple of us have talked about that,” she admits. “I’m OK with embellishing, but once you’ve turned it into like crimes and you are the victim – that’s a little different than something I said my mom said.
“To me, it’s like psychopathic – but I’m not here to diagnose anyone! What kind of psycho sociopath are you that you’re going to make yourself…. like I don’t think I should go onstage and say this big crime happened to me if it didn’t happen. That’s taking a leap that’s further than the normal amount of embellishment to me. But to each his own. And here’s the thing – no one will care. That’s the whole thing now. No one cares about anything so do what you do, I guess.”
As she continues to hit the road, it’s fair to ask – what keeps her coming back for more. To my surprise, she’s candid about the notion. “Look, I don’t necessarily ever want to get on the road or do a show,” she laughs. “I enjoy it, but I enjoy about 50 other things just as much. And I don’t get to do those other things because I’m doing that. Ron came up to my house during COVID, and he said ‘Isn’t it amazing how seamlessly we slipped into retirement without a party? I said ‘I was having the time of my life – going fishing everyday, playing golf and taking hikes.’ I was in shape. It was nice for once to not have to leave. But the road is always fun and interesting. Or the fact that it is not fun is good for a joke.”
But considering the fact that a legend like Ron White has publicly been mulling over retirement, it may be a good reminder to go out and see great stand-ups while they’re still willing to schlep around the country for us. There may come a day where they’d really rather be fishing.
Kathleen Madison’s performance is scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday, October 28 at 713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin, Suite 1600. For more information, visit 713musichall.com. $34-$293.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
