alibi_shop (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alibi_shop) wrote2019-02-02 01:32 pm
alibi_shop) wrote2019-02-02 01:32 pm
Stage: The El-Salomons
The El-Salomons, seen on 1/27/19 at PianoFight for SF SketchFest
I normally try not to call performers "adorable" because that's almost always condescending or gross, but Eman El-Husseini and Jess Salomon have basically made a piece about adoring each other, so it's hard to avoid. This is a show about love and I am a total sucker for it.
It's by no means all sweetness and light, though. Their real-life situation that the act is about, a marriage between two women of Palestinian and Jewish descent, is certainly played for laughs about stereotypes (and they're not shy about using it as a promotional hook)—but as they keep trading jokes and stories and circling back to different parts of the relationship, some genuinely challenging things come up, often wrapped in a joke that leaves an aftertaste of "Wait, was it OK for me to laugh at that?" The most obvious of those is an occupation gag early in the show, when Salomon says something along the lines of "So I moved into her place without asking—you know, like we do!" Later, we hear about the moment when it became clear that for Salomon to see El-Husseini naked would involve looking at a very assertive anti-Zionist tattoo. The combination of Salomon's cheerfully nerdy delivery and El-Husseini's frequent skeptical glare allows material like this to land exactly in between "this is kind of in bad taste" and "the world is in bad taste"—while also acknowledging that humor doesn't actually make these issues go away; it's just a way of acknowledging where we're at. I could go on about the theme of navigating differences in privilege and experience (other levels of this include the couple's move from Canada to the US, and their having to come out to their families in effect twice) and it would just sound high-minded and awful, but that's why comedians are better at writing than I am.
That's all mixed together with a lot of observational humor about relationships in general, in a style that acknowledges that sometimes you're not just annoyed with your partner in a cute way but really can't comprehend why they behave the way they do—at a couple points you feel that even though they've obviously rehearsed and done this a million times, they might be on the verge of quarreling for real. And then the story takes another turn and the tension slips away; that resilience, the moment when you're able to reconnect on some other level, is something I'm still only starting to understand after five years of marriage and 18 years of committed relationships before that. In that context, it didn't even feel too weird when they did the kind of audience participation thing I hate: picking out two audience members on a date and putting them on the spot because they look so cute together, etc. Instead of "Let's embarrass these kids" it came across more as "Well, we just said a lot of embarrassing stuff about ourselves, and what a mess love is, so let's just appreciate the fun part for a minute."
See them if you get a chance; they're usually in New York.
I normally try not to call performers "adorable" because that's almost always condescending or gross, but Eman El-Husseini and Jess Salomon have basically made a piece about adoring each other, so it's hard to avoid. This is a show about love and I am a total sucker for it.
It's by no means all sweetness and light, though. Their real-life situation that the act is about, a marriage between two women of Palestinian and Jewish descent, is certainly played for laughs about stereotypes (and they're not shy about using it as a promotional hook)—but as they keep trading jokes and stories and circling back to different parts of the relationship, some genuinely challenging things come up, often wrapped in a joke that leaves an aftertaste of "Wait, was it OK for me to laugh at that?" The most obvious of those is an occupation gag early in the show, when Salomon says something along the lines of "So I moved into her place without asking—you know, like we do!" Later, we hear about the moment when it became clear that for Salomon to see El-Husseini naked would involve looking at a very assertive anti-Zionist tattoo. The combination of Salomon's cheerfully nerdy delivery and El-Husseini's frequent skeptical glare allows material like this to land exactly in between "this is kind of in bad taste" and "the world is in bad taste"—while also acknowledging that humor doesn't actually make these issues go away; it's just a way of acknowledging where we're at. I could go on about the theme of navigating differences in privilege and experience (other levels of this include the couple's move from Canada to the US, and their having to come out to their families in effect twice) and it would just sound high-minded and awful, but that's why comedians are better at writing than I am.
That's all mixed together with a lot of observational humor about relationships in general, in a style that acknowledges that sometimes you're not just annoyed with your partner in a cute way but really can't comprehend why they behave the way they do—at a couple points you feel that even though they've obviously rehearsed and done this a million times, they might be on the verge of quarreling for real. And then the story takes another turn and the tension slips away; that resilience, the moment when you're able to reconnect on some other level, is something I'm still only starting to understand after five years of marriage and 18 years of committed relationships before that. In that context, it didn't even feel too weird when they did the kind of audience participation thing I hate: picking out two audience members on a date and putting them on the spot because they look so cute together, etc. Instead of "Let's embarrass these kids" it came across more as "Well, we just said a lot of embarrassing stuff about ourselves, and what a mess love is, so let's just appreciate the fun part for a minute."
See them if you get a chance; they're usually in New York.