On stage, she's a mean machine
The key to understanding Lisa Lampanelli's act is to realize the comic doesn't mean a word she says onstage. Her calling in life is to insult everyone she meets, swaggering about the stage with a boxer's posture and clobbering the front row with epithets.
Race, creed, sexual orientation, age -- everything is fair game to the so-called ''Lovable Queen of Mean." Lampanelli, who plays the Comedy Connection tonight and tomorrow, is broad, crass, and, yes, mean. She inflates stereotypes until they burst, with an audience of mostly willing subjects.
She says she doesn't care if her label-bashing message gets through, but she's begun to thank the subjects of her ridicule at show's end to put a finer point on the joke, hoping that'll clue in those who think she's serious.
''Saying no Hispanic has a job?" she says. ''I mean, come on. They're the hardest-working people in America. The more stupid and ignorant the statement, the better the impact of the ridiculousness of the joke."
Outside of, say, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, insult comics don't usually travel up the industry ladder quickly. Their art involves crowd work more than written material, and that makes them a poor fit for the tightly scripted talk show circuit.
''If I'm up there and I have to do five minutes of straight material, I want to just kill myself," she says.
But Lampanelli has been crossing into more scripted sets lately. Her new special, ''Take It Like a Man," was released last week on DVD and airs tomorrow night on Comedy Central. She was also a guest star on this week's ''Reno 911!," just finished taping a feature film with ''Blue Collar" comic Larry the Cable Guy, and will start shopping a network sitcom at the end of the month. Lampanelli thinks it's about time network TV saw another Archie Bunker type and feels she's up to the job.
''People make the mistake to think a sitcom is a seven-minute pitch, that you've developed this nice little tidy act that spells out your life," she says. ''That has really less to do with it than a strong voice that can carry a show."
The rebirth of the comedy roast has given Lampanelli's career a lift. She's been the only female comic on several televised roasts the past five years on Comedy Central, most recently taking aim at Pamela Anderson.
Lampanelli noticed more people at her shows in Las Vegas last week. Perhaps more important, no one walked out offended.
''This way people know to stay away if they don't like this kind of thing," she says. ''If you want this humor, that's great. If you don't, you can go to see Carrot Top, you can go to see Seinfeld. That's fine."
A broader festival
Comic Jim McCue and city councilman John Tobin created the Boston International Comedy & Movie Festival in 2000 to showcase local talent, a throwback to McCue's days of hosting his own Boston-related comedy shows on the outskirts of Montreal during its Just for Laughs Festival. So the festival that kicks off tonight with ''Lewis Black and Friends" at the Cutler Majestic Theatre might seem a little strange to those who have followed the previous five incarnations.
Tobin has moved on to producing his own shows at the Dedham Community Theatre, and the festival has moved from April to September to target the incoming college crowd. And while there are still plenty of Boston acts on the weeklong lineup of shows, the emphasis this year is on up-and-comers from around the country.
Black's show will feature Boston veterans Kevin Knox and Don Gavin, and most of the theme shows of the past have been replaced with showcases for strong local acts like Robby Roadsteamer and the Walsh Brothers. But more than half of the comedians come from outside of Boston.
''I always want to promote Boston comedy, but I also have to get the best people I can get," McCue says. ''If I just use that as my rule, it keeps things pretty fair."
Around town
Steve Sweeney, Dave Russo, and Paul Gilligan play two shows tonight at Giggles in Saugus. . . . Paul Nardizzi, Paul Keenan, and Mike O'Neil play Dick's Beantown Comedy Escape in Lowell tonight and tomorrow. . . . Erin Judge hosts Taylor Connelly, Mary Beth Cowan, Arielle Goldman, Greg Howell, J.J. Leslie, Tom Liszanckie, Christian Lynch, Eric Riley Moore, Todd Sharek, and Joe Spinale at the Comedy Studio Sunday.
