Whether you're going to film festivals, music conferences, or trade shows, just about any media-driven gathering of the entertainment industry is bound to be geared toward a specific age range and prevailing attitude. For example, the South By Southwest music festival in Austin has hundreds of bands, thousands of fans, and an emphasis on adult-oriented roots-rock, while the Sundance Film Festival in Utah is aimed at mostly young and middle-aged fans of independent cinema.
Trying to find the target audience for the six-year-old U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen is trickier: It's for comedy professionals, media, and fans, of course, but 2000's line-up offered a remarkably broad range of ages and approaches. This year, virtually every age group was accounted for: There were twentysomething stand-ups too numerous to mention, thirtysomething confessional storytellers (Marc Maron was among the best), fortysomething establishment figures (Robin Williams, Martin Short), fiftysomething staples (Steve Martin), sixtysomething reunion draws (The Smothers Brothers, Nichols & May), and, of course, the seventysomething Jerry Lewis.
As many know by now, Lewis provided the 2000 festival's requisite controversy when, near the end of a tribute and lovefest hosted by Short, he told a large audience, "I don't like any female comedians," then helpfully explained: "I see the woman as everything she wants to be, but not that. That's only because I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies into the world."
That didn't go over so well.
Besides firing up the crowd and the national entertainment media—you could see a hungry gleam in the eyes of reporters as they filed out of the Lewis tribute—and increasing the number of media inquiries directed at nearby female comics like Beth Littleford, the incident begged a question: Whose festival is this, anyway?
As of now, attendees get to settle for a grab bag of young up-and-comers and mostly well-programmed oldies, with ample downtime so furry-booted Hollywood types can hit the copious ski slopes. (Aspen's tendency not to plow or salt its snow-packed side roads made walking a similarly athletic, if less expensive and enjoyable, pursuit.) For those who didn't ski or have carte-blanche entry into all the ticketed shows, the downtime often meant crushing tedium and games of Celebrity Scavenger Hunt; watching every set of eyes in a crowded lobby fixed on an uncomfortable-looking Steve Martin must have made some of the would-be stars in attendance question the virtues of fame.
When the highlights came, they were often dazzling. Setting aside less enticing tributes to Barry Levinson, Lewis, and Williams—who was gracious and accessible enough throughout the festival to make you forgive Patch Adams, but only if you've never seen it—the top draws should have warranted more national attention than they did. Reunions of Mike Nichols and Elaine May (the brilliant comedy team who split to direct and write their own frequently successful projects) and The Smothers Brothers (the subversive duo fired by CBS in 1969 for political reasons) would have been worth the price of admission even without the live appearances, since the great clip reels alone provided some of the festival's biggest laughs. Nichols and May themselves seemed ill-at-ease being interviewed by Steve Martin, while the raucous humor of the Smothers Brothers reunion (which also featured unctuous moderator Bill Maher and original writers Bob Einstein, Mason Williams, and Martin) belied the fact that camera crews were pulling aside young people in line and asking them where on Earth they'd ever heard of the influential duo.
Those younger fans were in abundance during the two performances of "The Simpsons Live," the first-ever public readings of Simpsons scripts by the show's cast. Again, the clip reel alone was enough to render the crowd helpless, but each show followed it with a complete episode ("Homer's Enemy," "Lisa's Date With Density") and a Q&A session (Q: "Say 'D'oh!'" A: "D'oh!"). Dan Castellaneta, who voices Homer Simpson among many others, was especially busy at the festival, performing at both "The Simpsons Live" and his own less rapturously received one-man show. Given the unpromising title "Where Did Vincent Van Gogh?," it featured an uneven assortment of characters and voices that seemed more like an exercise than an act.
To make matters worse, Castellaneta repeated one of his show's longest routines at each performance of Catherine O'Hara's good-natured comedy smorgasbord, which featured such unexpected highlights as Martin begrudgingly showing up to play two banjo songs. ("And then I'm going to fucking go.") For every Martin and O'Hara, there was at least one dismal clunker like a drunken Janeane Garofalo routine (if you're going to read your jokes off scraps of paper, at least make them funny) or hammy Martin Short musical number (plugging "Aspen" into the "_______ Is A Lady" template isn't going to surprise anyone), but the highs obscured the lows.
If the likes of Jerry Lewis made the headlines, the joy—and, with any luck, the future—of the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival is in the discoveries, whether in the stand-up segments, the mish-mash of independent comedy films, or shows such as those of long-suffering Marc Maron, whose years of stand-up drudgery crystallized in "Jerusalem Syndrome," an engrossing hour-long monologue that transcended the set-up/punchline world usually associated with live comedy. In 2000, Aspen's comedy festival may be remembered by most as the year Jerry Lewis stepped in it, but for deserving participants like Maron it should have a longer and more welcome effect.