Praise for Will
Franken
Grandpa, It's Not Fitting Reviews:
NAILING POLITICAL CORRECTNESS TO A CROSS: From Betty's List: LGBT News
"Franken is trying to break through the thick shellac of PC that our society has gleefully painted around itself. The point becomes clear as the show progresses. Most of his sketches are discomforting, some bringing out irritation and even anger in the audience. . .as the evening went on, I gradually came to understand what Franken was doing. Slowly, methodically, he deconstructs the PC mindset and shows it for the corrosion of thought it really is. . .it's a message that needs to be heard. Highly recommended. You'll be entertained, likely pissed off. And if you're lucky, you'll leave with your own layer of PC shellac a bit thinner."
WILL FRANKEN: COMEDY, NOT POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: from SF Gate
"Lest Franken be labeled a conservative or, what's worse in today's parlance, a dreaded neoconservative, there's something in his show to offend just about anyone. Franken is that rare species--an independent thinker with a healthy sense of the absurd and a complete and utter lack of political correctness. Not to mention being funny."
And the excellent piece from the SF Weekly:
TAILORED FOR SAN FRANCISCO: Chloe Veltman's review for SF Weekly
"Seeing this city through Franken's kaleidoscope eyes is one of the things that has kept me sane over the past few years. San Francisco and Franken are a good fit for one another. Just as it's impossible to imagine Jerry Seinfeld or Woody Allen associating themselves with any metropolis other than New York, it's hard to imagine Franken feeling at home beyond the Bay Area. . .In this city of misfits, Franken fits right in. He's San Francisco's patron saint of misrule."
Read the whole review here. . .
FROM THE SF Chronicle:
"The lanky, long-haired comedian's genius resides in his sense of the absurd and a disdain for political correctness on either side of the left/right divide. . .He is devastating as he skewers smug San Francisco liberals' politically-correct bigotry, playing an activist urging his cohorts to make sure that Christians gathering in Golden Gate Park get the message, 'This is a tolerant city. Get out!'. . .
"One of his more tasteless sketches is also one of the most purely--if uncomfortably--hilarious, as he plays a member of Artists Against Rape who performs an interpretive dance of a man less concerned with the crime happening outside his window than with what he fears will be a harsh police response. . ."
"'Grandpa, It's Not Fitting' is a mixed bag, but it is not just the successful bits that make it worthwhile. Even when Franken's wit falters, his ideas are compelling, and the door the show opens into the mind of a man who can make a connection between the sun and a children's food fight or an American Indian tribe and philosopher Jacques Derrida is fascinating."
FROM THE SF BAY GUARDIAN:
"Comedic powerhouse Will Franken unleashes his latest one-man assault on the conventional, the crass, and the mind-numbingly mundane. Fighting the absurd with the absurd, Franken, under the sure hand of director David Hines, masterfully translates a quick and wildly roaming mind to a more or less smooth blend of savory set-ups and elaborately sarcastic sing-a-longs whose impertinent surrealist humor tastes of Ween as much as Monty Python. . ."
FROM THE SF EXAMINER:
"Things are so mystifying in the opening segments of Will Franken's new solo show at the Marsh, 'Grandpa, It's Not Fitting,' it took me awhile to connect with the lanky, wild-eyed writer/performer. What are we to make of a recorded song about ejaculating into a swan, and a meandering, extended sequence in which an amplified voice-over intones repetitive stage directions as Franken, in a lab coat, gazes quizzically at the tech booth and telephones a terminal breast cancer patient, represented by a gnatlike buzzing in his ear? But when Franken moves on to a series of satirical scenes that morph seamlessly into one another, 'Grandpa's' 90-plus minutes race by, full of wit and weirdness. . .
"Franken is fearlessly un-PC willing to mock things we're not supposed to laugh at."
SOME EXCELLENT BLOG POSTS FROM AUDIENCE MEMBERS:
GO SEE WILL FRANKEN. NOW. By Karl Fogel
THEATRE: Best. Comedy. Ever. By William Butler Yeast
and here's one in Swedish (pretty sure it's Swedish. . .I ran it through a translator thing): Forsta skalvet By Thomas Listerman
OUTSIDE OF SAN FRANCISCO, HOWEVER, IT MAY BE A LITTLE CHALLENGING FOR THE SUBURBAN SIMPLICITY OF THE SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS:
". . .this reviewer spent a lot of time in full-on head-scratcher mode desperately wondering not only what the heck he's talking about but when, oh when, will it end?"
"Carrot Top without the props. . ."
"Seems apropos of nothing. . .Let's not even go into the Artists against Rape skit. I think it may have been intended as a lampoon of PR-hounds who milk obvious causes for attention. . ."
". . .more Noam Chomsky references. Sigh."
". . .topical tomfoolery. . ."
". . .don't even bother wondering why. . ."
AND MORE PRAISE FOR OTHER WILL FRANKEN-RELATED VENTURES:
"Imagine a surreal-estate agent guiding you through some Escher-like architectural marvel, where each room is its own deeply funny, satirical dream, every passageway a verbal wormhole, and in the corner a shaggy high priest of nothing's-sacredness is fiddling with a bunch of knobs on what looks like an espresso maker. Suddenly you wake up and remember that the lanky comedic heavy-lifter who put the abs on absurdity with last year's Good Luck with It returns to the Marsh for a one-off. . . . The moral? Existence may be fleeting, but Franken is not to be missed."
-- San Francisco Bay Guardian
-- The Onion
"With respect to one-man comedy shows, there's funny, and then there's Franken-funny. A monster comic showman of truly prodigious talent, San Francisco comedian Will Franken fills up a performance space so naturally you'd think he could really only live on stage (without, anyway, seriously alarming the villagers). In this largely brilliant series of absurd segues and satirical sketches (the show's title emerges from a particularly pettish personality type in one of them), the lanky, long-haired, and distinctly not-what-you'd-expect performer lights on the Marsh like a gangling bird of prey, devouring every cultural cliché, vacuous dramatic trope, or everyday inanity a deeply middling civilization has to offer. The easily offended will not be disappointed. Devoutly sacrilegious and scrupulously inappropriate, as well as refreshingly off-the-wall, Franken's the surreal thing."
-- Rob Avila, San Francisco Bay Guardian
"What elevates Mr. Franken above your garden-variety comedian is an erudite wit and a highly developed sense of the absurd"
"The stage version of Good Luck With It is a nearly flawless one-man show, with the frantic Franken breathlessly running through skits that hammer liberals, yuppies, and anyone puffed up with importance."
-- Michael Leaverton, SF Weekly
"To call Will Franken’s performances “comedy” is limiting. His shapeshifting multipersona performances bring to mind the Salvador Dalí quote “I don’t take drugs; I am drugs. ”When Franken embodies one character after another — accent, mannerisms, and all — the effect is of an overdriven multimedia device. He deconstructs all manner of assumptions; just as the Onion parodies journalism, Franken satirizes performance’s tropes. His material may offend some, but he even deconstructs the feeling of being offended and posits it as ex post facto reaction rather than innate response. Franken is a prolific writer whose never-ending stream of new material and depth of reference shows up the laziness of other performers who spend their time polishing the delivery of the same tired routines. While LSD may not be legal, so far Franken is."
"The fuel of "Good Luck With It" is the disgust of an intellectual raised in a religious small town, combined with the dismay of a religious, small-towner living in a metropolitan Babylon. It’s more acting than stand-up, and no race, minority, nor pet cause is safe. It belongs in some London theater and it's way too good for cable TV."
"In a mere hour and 30 minutes, Franken manages to inject more thought, soul, and hilarity into such varied topics as the parents of murdered children or President Bush’s campaign to capture the 18th century (yes, you read that right) than any other show I’ve seen. The best part is he pulls no punches. He refuses to dumb down or censor his material, and he virtually obliterates any distinction between the high-brow and low-brow. . . . Aside from effortlessly mixing high culture (references to Edna St. Vincent Millay, John Milton, deconstructing television ads) with low (the most scatological ad for a woman’s empowerment symposium ever), Franken also manages to find a marvelous balance in his performance between precision and spontaneity. . . . It’s probably the funniest thing I’ve seen all year."
-- San Francisco Chronicle
-- SF Weekly
"Franken is much more an actor and performer than a comedian, and when he does spot-on impersonations of a folksy open mic host, or an anti-drug lecturer, he steps inside unique, authentic personas. Instead of delivering one-liners, Franken simply becomes these diverse characters, something that a generic stand-up comic would be hard-pressed to replicate"
-- SF Weekly
-- The East Bay Express
-- The News and Review