The thing you were supposed to notice, rather blatantly, when David Sedaris walked onstage at the Majestic Theatre in Dallas was his outfit. It was a strange look. Something like a Japanese designer such as Yohji Yamamoto of deconstructivism fame meeting an Orthodox Rabbi, but without the shtreimel and tallit, in an ensemble of a black and white enormous shirt and a long midi skirt.
I read one of his books, “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” in 2000. That first time I came across the humorist’s writing, it got me hooked for life. What makes Sedaris so engagingly delicious is his penchant for pointing out the absurd in daily life. His laser-focused analysis, wit, self-deprecation and family dysfunction have created a real persona, not one disconnected from his life.
Something about Sedaris reminds me of Erma Bombeck, and a recent production in Austin staged her life and work in Erma Bombeck: At Wit’s End. Their subjects and sensibilities are different, but they share a particular literary gift: the ability to extract the extraordinary from the ordinary. Bombeck found an endless supply of comedy and humanity in domestic life, marriage, motherhood, and the small indignities of everyday existence. Sedaris takes a similarly forensic approach to family, travel, social encounters, and the peculiarities of human behavior. Both understand that the mundane is anything but mundane when someone knows how to look at it.
Sedaris is physically slight, but his stage presence is enormous. He doesn’t need theatrical tricks to command an audience. His observations do the work. While much of the audience at the Majestic showed obvious devotion to him, some jokes failed to connect. His anti-Trump remarks and his unvarnished family observations occasionally met with silence from some audience members. That, too, was part of the evening.
He read from several of his former essays and from newer ones from his latest book, “The Land and Its People”.
What makes Sedaris such an extraordinary storyteller is not simply his ability to provoke laughter. It is his eye for detail, his capacity to recognize the strange and revealing behavior that most of us pass over, and his ability to turn those observations into stories that feel both intimate and universal. As I was leaving, someone in the audience said that they’ve been going to his shows for twenty years, the same time he’s appeared in Dallas. Next year, I’ll wait for his Austin show, although taking a two-day trip outside the city is always pleasant. I didn’t stay for the book signing as I had already downloaded the Kindle version.