Louis C.K.: HilariousDec 5-6. Fri 8pm; Sat 8pm and midnight. $39.50 ($34.50 advance). Diesel Playhouse, 56 Blue Jays Way. 416-971-5656.
www.dieselplayhouse.com.
Too often, it seems like so-called dark comedy is just an excuse to deliver a rant about some ex-girlfriend, punctuated with poo jokes. There aren't many comics who can take an audience to an uncomfortably bleak place — say, punching a toddler square in the face — and bring 'em back laughing at something beyond the mere shock of it all.
Until recently, Louis C.K. was not one of those comics. Not because he was unfunny, but because he played it relatively safe — going largely unnoticed on stage despite his Emmy-winning sideline as a writer for David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Chris Rock.
Then, at about age 40, he changed his approach. He got more daring with bits about the murderous frustrations of parenting and his sexless marriage and was quickly rewarded with cable specials and his own (albeit short-lived) series on HBO.
“It's just so fun to go to that depth,” says C.K., who plays three shows this weekend at the Diesel Playhouse. “When I let myself go to those places and find something joyfully funny — not to be too corny about it — that's a great thing to share with an audience.”
C.K. — the stage name is a dumbed-down version of the Hungarian Szekely — sees himself as “an optimist in a shitty world.”
While other comics self-deprecate, he self-loathes. C.K. doesn't toe the line of too much information but instead strides confidently across it, such as describing in unblinking detail an appallingly bleak sexual encounter with his wife and another with a dog in his 2007 special Shameless. Rarely smiling, often scowling, he takes and wins with enormous risks — joking about how he almost accidentally gassed his newborn daughter to death and about what would happen if he punched his four-year-old.
“The reason I get very frustrated by being a parent is because I really, really want to be a good one,” he explains with a laugh. “That's why I'm so stressed, so strung-out. If I didn't love my kids I'd sleep in and let them be late for school. Why would I give a shit?”
He shares his black sense of humour with his pal Ricky Gervais, who did a lot to boost C.K.'s recent tour of the UK and to cast him as his best friend in the upcoming movie This Side of the Truth.
He and the British comic “both like to rub other people's faces in how horrible human beings can be — and how embarrassing,” he says.
C.K. throws away his material after every tour in order to keep things fresh, though he often returns to talking about the agonies of domestic life. And, yet, he says his recent split from the aforementioned wife of 10 years is largely absent from his new show.
"I don't talk about the breakup; I don't talk about what went on with us," he says. "I don't feel I have the right to do that. But it does affect me. I'm a single dad and that's a big deal.
"I do five minutes about being single. The rest is about the rest of the world."