Australian standup comedian Hannah Gadsby, who is genderqueer and uses they/them pronouns, rose to prominence in 2018 with the Netflix special Nanette, which featured plenty of traditional standup routines plus serious issues like a homophobic attack they experienced. The show won both an Emmy and a Peabody. Afterward, Gadsby performed three more Netflix specials and wrote a New York Times bestselling memoir.
Now they’re back with a new show called Woof!, and they’ve been touring it around the world. It’ll be performed in LA on November 24 at the United Theater on Broadway.
During the Nanette days, critics painted Gadsby as a “trauma comedian.” Gadsby says that’s a “fairly short-sighted view of an artist,” but they were so busy that they didn’t think about critics’ opinions.
Gadsy notes that they’re uninterested in digging more into their trauma now. “That whole process helped me move through the worst of the stickiness of my trauma. … It would only be, I guess, an exercise of ego and cynicism if I continue to mine my trauma.”
How did Gadsby receive their new-found fame six years ago?
“Your voice being heard and understood, and your show being consumed by people you'll never meet, you'll never be in the same room as, is a very different undertaking, and that's a very recent phenomenon. … I don't think we question it enough. … There are so many people who are just living their life, who have the capacity to go viral, whether they want to or not. … And these people are completely unsupported, and we've created a really hostile cultural landscape for ourselves.”
Still, Gadsby says it’s “staggering” that so many people connect to their work. “I try my best not to be indulgent, so it is nice to know that my work means something.”
Being onstage also makes Gadsby feel the most efficient at communicating. “I just compile all my thoughts, get them in a nice, neat, little, entertaining order. And then tell a lot of people all at once. And I'm really not efficient in real life, and I certainly don't talk like that in real life.”
When they’re onstage, having a relationship with the audience is key too, Gadsby notes. “You need the audience. It needs to be a conversation, even though only one person is talking. But there, I am very much aware of the mood of an audience. … That's how I strengthen my shows and my jokes — is learning how an audience will react, and that's as much about the silences, the pauses, the inflections. And performing has helped me, as an autistic person, modulate more effectively.”
They add, “I think if I ever want to achieve anything, it’s to force neurotypical people to think about the way they think. Autistic people are very aware of the way they think. It's the only thing we think about, because we're always told we're doing it wrong. So we're just always going back to the drawing board, going, ‘Okay, well, that wasn't received well.’ But neurotypical people do not do that, and I think it would be helpful if they did.”
Meanwhile, what can viewers expect from Gadsby’s newest show? Woof! is the funniest one they’ve ever written, they say. “I'm really proud of it. It's dense. … It touches on a lot of things. I'm indicating a new direction in my comedy. … I think it'll be really interesting to do this show in LA, it's funny that it's the last one. I'm really speaking quite a few truths to quite a few powers, and then some of those powers exist in the LA landscape.”
As for their next work, it’ll require extra conscientiousness, Gadsby says, especially after Donald Trump’s second presidential victory.
“I think after the election, and the kinds of things that were said about my community on those that were elected, makes it incredibly dangerous. I think the freedom of speech is not just the only issue here. There's freedom of movement and freedom of bodily autonomy at play here. And a lot of people who actively hate my community have been emboldened. So I guess what you do next is — I'll have to really think really carefully about it.”