Whether they showcase film, music, or comedy, entertainment festivals have a chance to serve a dual purpose, showcasing talent while presenting the public with a theme encompassing the state of the industry. It's a tricky balancing act, but the eighth annual U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, held Feb. 27 to Mar. 3 in Aspen, went out of its way to offer comedy and commentary in equal measure.
Comedy has rarely been more widely dissected and discussed than it has been in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Bill Maher's ABC talk show Politically Incorrect, for example, will likely always be remembered (after it's canceled at the end of this season) for inspiring White House press secretary Ari Fleischer to urge Americans to "watch what they say." And comedy itself has been called into question more than once, in spite of mountainous evidence that the nation is not only ready to laugh in the wake of tragedy, but also willing to be swept up in outrage over Olympic figure-skating scandals.
The continued existence of laughter isn't exactly headline news in March 2002, any more than the topic of free speech is controversial among comedians and creators. But this year's festival offered surprises on both counts, with an intriguing late-night lineup of Sept. 11-themed standup (led by Maher) and a free-speech panel ("Freedom In The Arts 2002") that at times looked like it would come to blows.
Of all the comedically satisfying moments the 2002 festival had to offer, few could top the bickering of director Oliver Stone, Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, and South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Their wildly contrasting opinions and rhetorical approaches—Trudeau minimized the threat of censorship in America, Oliver Stone called Trudeau an elitist, and Matt Stone at one point addressed the Platoon director as "bud"—made a discussion of cynicism and censorship uproariously funny.
The festival honored and showcased comics from all points on fame's arc, from buzzed-about rising stars (Taylor Mali, the British sketch group The Sketch Show) to reinvigorated veterans (Janeane Garofalo, whose strongest standup in ages coincided with her "first sober Aspen"), all the way up to feted legends whose appearances came with retrospective clip reels. For every mainstream superstar with a hacky streak—last year it was Billy Crystal, this year it was Whoopi Goldberg—the USCAF honored a towering and influential figure like Bill Hicks (in a tribute tied to the release of Cynthia True's new book American Scream), Dick Gregory, Lily Tomlin, or George Carlin.
That dichotomy pervaded the festival from start to finish, with Doug Stanhope's X-rated raunch coexisting with a Listerine-sponsored award for a "clean mouth" in stand-up. Gregory, one of American comedy's most radical, outspoken, and historically important figures, was merely one point on a landscape that also included the star-studded première of the gaudy, misanthropic Hollywood comedy Death To Smoochy. And as always, newsworthy assemblages of talent aside, the festival provided fans and the media with opportunities to view celebrities in their natural habitat—glitzy hotel lobbies in wealthy mountain towns—and occasionally ply them with insipid questions.
Amid sightings of Talk Soup host Aisha Tyler and well-preserved Karate Kid turned short-film director Ralph Macchio, attendees could decide for themselves whether to take in big-name performances (by the likes of Seinfeld's Michael Richards, who trotted out 20-year-old material) or go digging for gems.
Arguably the best find, and the winner of a richly deserved Jury Award, was Rich Hall, performing in the guise of Otis Lee Crenshaw, a rough-and-tumble singer-songwriter who mixes redneck/convict shtick with uproarious improvisation. The festival's biggest surprise wasn't that the show was so funny, but that its star was the comic behind the '80s "Sniglets" craze. During a concert staple in which he improvises an anthem or monologue about a member of the audience, Hall proved that, if times ever get tough, he could make a fortune applying faux nobility to mundane professions and selling the ensuing songs on the Internet. What banker wouldn't want to hear "Bank Boy," from Hall's London, Not Tennessee CD?
Regardless of how Hall capitalizes on his USCAF success, the festival has served as a career jumping-off point for a long time. Two years ago, photogenic comic Godfrey did enormously well at the festival, and his rocket ride to superstardom has already landed him a role as the Orlando Jones surrogate in a series of 7-Up ads. Names from recent festivals are turning up with regularity on cable channels and sitcom guest spots—not overnight successes, to be sure, but getting there.
That process of slowly carving out a career, auditioning for minor parts and commercials and appearing at a thousand stand-up showcases, hasn't changed amid the navel-gazing and national mourning that overshadowed and affected comedy in the weeks and months following Sept. 11. So it's not a big surprise that one of comedy's largest and most enduring festivals would remain more or less the same for all its hours of lip service.
The question of comedy's survival in serious times was answered months before the 2002 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival opened its doors. When it was asked again in Aspen, on panels and on stage, the laughter made the question that much less relevant.