My husband and I recently saw Robert Klein at the Improv in Addison, TX and we both declared the evening a “disaster.” Obviously, we were both Klein fans or we wouldn’t have attended the performance, but we were truly embarrassed for him. His material was incredibly outdated—stuck in the early ‘80s at best; he made jokes about the presidential campaigns of Mondale and Dukakis—which about half the audience was too young to remember. Then he did a relatively long bit on Dan Quayle, including the famous misspelling of “potatoe.” He even did a long bit on my former boss, Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen, which was not only factually incorrect, but unfunny and completely irrelevant—as the Senator died four years ago and had been out of the public eye for many years prior to that. His only reference to President Bush, which is a veritable bumper crop of punchlines, was to the famously unfunny Bush the Elder, and a long bit about his sudden bout of nausea at a Japanese state dinner. His only stab at being even remotely contemporary was a ‘hymn’ to Barack Obama, which was already outdated—it sounded as if it had been written between the election and inauguration and had little or no relevance to the past year in office. There were several times when Mr. Klein appeared to lose his place or train of thought as he was cobbling together bits and pieces of his ancient acts. Unfortunately, I rated this performance one star in both categories only because the website wouldn’t allow me to submit “zero stars,” which is what it deserved.
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My husband and I recently saw Robert Klein at the Improv in Addison, TX and we both declared the evening a “disaster.” Obviously, we were both Klein fans or we wouldn’t have attended the performance, but we were truly embarrassed for him. His material was incredibly outdated—stuck in the early ‘80s at best; he made jokes about the presidential campaigns of Mondale and Dukakis—which about half the audience was too young to remember. Then he did a relatively long bit on Dan Quayle, including the famous misspelling of “potatoe.” He even did a long bit on my former boss, Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen, which was not only factually incorrect, but unfunny and completely irrelevant—as the Senator died four years ago and had been out of the public eye for many years prior to that. His only reference to President Bush, which is a veritable bumper crop of punchlines, was to the famously unfunny Bush the Elder, and a long bit about his sudden bout of nausea at a Japanese state dinner. His only stab at being even remotely contemporary was a ‘hymn’ to Barack Obama, which was already outdated—it sounded as if it had been written between the election and inauguration and had little or no relevance to the past year in office. There were several times when Mr. Klein appeared to lose his place or train of thought as he was cobbling together bits and pieces of his ancient acts. Unfortunately, I rated this performance one star in both categories only because the website wouldn’t allow me to submit “zero stars,” which is what it deserved.