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Whether you see this as a noble goal or as an eye-rolling attack on so-called "political correctness" is likely to determine how good a time you have at this show. Because, for all its historical hand-waving, it plays as little more than an excuse to get ethnic jokes, at least of the more acceptable variety, back into the comedic conversation again. In his opening minutes, Quinn makes the argument that it's the people who have always defined New York: that those who have come here from every class, from every imaginable part of the globe, to partake in a better, freer life than the one they had before, all intermingling, are responsible for the greatest subsection of the American experiment ever conducted, and can tell us a lot about how we do (and should) live. But it's not long until he drops that particular pretext and goes after the specific peoples, one by one. The Native Americans: "New York. The 1600s. The Lenape Indian tribe. They're the only people that are here. And they've already got a bit of that New York attitude. They're cocky, walking around with their shirts off, pecs hanging out, smoking tobacco." The Dutch: "The Dutch are like, business-world tough. Brusque. So it's like there the Indians are, sitting in a job interview with no shirt on. Eventually the business guys beat the pecs." The Irish and the British: "The Irish come in after the potato famine of 1848. They're desperate. What's the worst they can do? They look at Britain and it's two hours away. They look at America and it's two months—a sea crossing, hardship, half are going to die on the trip. And they say, "Let's go." The Jews: They've been here about 150 years and, I think it's fair to say, they still haven't recovered from the boat trip. They're still walking around a little queasy. Slightly bent over. Back problems." You get the idea. The evening is little more than Quinn's cycling through each immigrant population one by one, deconstructing what made them unique as viewed through the lens of an inclusive system that didn't always recognize how inclusive it was, and how it contributed to the creation of today's distinctive New York personality and culture. Though he eventually veers into other topics (the subway, crime), it still happens by way of the millions of individuals who collectively bite the Big Apple every day. The set (by Sara C. Walsh) even riffs off the picture everyone has in mind of New York: a stoop in front of a slightly trashy apartment building, with garbage, fire-escape ladders, clotheslines, and boxes outlining your field of vision. Seinfeld doesn't do much with this—he wisely keeps the focus centered squarely on Quinn—but it's an appropriate playing area. (Sarah Lurie's lighting design contributes handsomely to the effect as well.) Does all of this add up to something funny? Sure. I laughed frequently, as did the audience around me. (Though I will say that the uneven chuckle distribution I detected suggests that, more than most comedies, this is one in which you can expect that not everyone will react to exactly the same lines.) But if you don't like this type of thing, especially as filtered through Quinn's off-the-cuff, occasionally maddening drive-in-circles delivery (which usually involves smacking you in the back with a punch line before you even realize you're listening to a joke), this 65 minutes is going to seem time-stopping slow. I do like it, and even I thought there were unusual dead patches that didn't manifest themselves as strongly in his previous recent efforts, Unconstitutional (in 2013) and Long Story Short (also directed by Seinfeld, in 2010). Part of the problem is that this is pretty easy stuff from a conceptual standpoint, and even when Quinn sort of pushes the boundaries, which he doesn't very often (he dares delve into the knotty political implications of the "black lives matter" movement), there's no danger he'll step on anyone toes. Once you realize that, you relax, if perhaps a bit too much. Comedy that takes few chances, even when (as here) that's the theme and the point, has to work extra-hard to fly extra-high, and, with one exception, Quinn doesn't quite get all the lift you think he should. That one exception, by the way, is the very last scene, so I won't spoil it. I will, however, say that it attacks the final, unspeakable taboo, a sort of Holy Grail of ethnic jokes that induces shivers because of how—strange to say—dangerous it is, despite barely being dangerous at all. But the joke isn't in the words itself, but in our attitude toward them. As Quinn breaks it down more and more into its component pieces, he doesn't just make a statement about the fragile nature of the comedian's art, but also our complicity in it, then and now. What will we allow to be funny, and what won't we, and how secure are we in those convictions? Making you question why you're laughing and whether you should is an unsettling way to end something like Colin Quinn The New York Story. But, more than the standard-issue gags that lead up to it, it forces you to consider whether what we've gained is really worth what all we've lost, and something that is or should be a laughing matter—in New York or anywhere else.
Colin Quinn The New York Story
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