'My Price Point' skewers our consumer culture
Mike Albo, familiar here from his comic sketches in ''Unitard" and from his book ''The Underminer," returns to Boston next week with a new one-man comic show, ''My Price Point."
With wild riffs on our consumer culture, the show ricochets from celebrity obsessions to trend-spotting to one-upmanship. Albo's characters include a dancing corporate logo and the pseudo-best-friend who undermines your every achievement with a calculatedly offhand remark: ''I love how you are just out there on the market. You are such a dating trouper!"
Albo, 35, spoke from New York recently about ''My Price Point," which is directed by David Schweizer, written with Virginia Heffernan, and presented by the Theater Offensive at the Boston Center for the Arts. In his opening monologue, he's a demographic researcher addressing the audience: ''From our research, we found out that 83 percent of you are part of the 30-42 age demographic. You like Taye Diggs in more comedic roles, Design Within Reach, standing up for what you believe, and organic blush."
How did you come up with that?
I used to do it in a different way. I was the Human Demographic: ''Hi, I am a 32-to-42-age male." And then I decided to pitch the audience as the demographic. There's this quote that I put in the program, from the Republican campaign manager, Ken Mehlman. It's this quote about how ''we just did what corporate America did for years -- we profiled people by what they bought." That just creeped me out more than anything.
I also do this dance of trends. It's a dance to the obsolescence of fads, and what we have to clutch onto. I go through all the audio equipment you have to buy, starting with vinyl, to eight-track, to cassette, to CD, to iPod. I go through all these cellphone sizes, from gigantic 1989 to this tiny little dot that I put in my mouth. And then accessories, from pashmina to a trucker hat -- oh, and there's a Chihuahua, and a baby. I do the fads of religions, and I do dances, from the Charleston to a Beyonce move.
And this is all done in like 30 seconds. It's really, really fun to do, but it's really hard. It's just like there's never time to rest. You're always trying to stuff something in your mouth. And you have to. You can't survive without an iPod now. Music has changed, so if you want to listen to music, you need it.
Is there any hope for us?
The show is also me coming to terms with the fact that it's too late to turn the other way. The older notion of being a WTO protester and throwing paint splatters at a
Maybe your most famous character is the ''friend" who undermines you with little offhand remarks. I should tell you that my editor wanted me to do this whole interview as the Underminer.
I'm so glad you didn't. That's happened a couple of times, and I always end up getting really depressed. It's like, ''I think the character's really evil. Why are you doing this to me?"
How did you develop that character?
I did it with my friend Virginia Heffernan. We were in our early 30s and just thinking -- that's when underminers hit their stride. That's when your love life starts getting really pathetic if you're still single, and that's when the career gets important.
I did it in New York and thought, ''Oh, this is just going to be such a New York-centric kind of character." Then I performed the character in different cities, and I noticed it was much more national than I'd thought.
Were you surprised by that?
Well, you know, I've auditioned for the Aspen Comedy Festival a couple of times, and it's always the same: ''Too New Yorky." I feel the same way about people who think you're too gay or too black or whatever. Isn't that the whole point of art, that we're sharing our experience?
What are you doing next?
As happens when you write a book, there's that slightly taunting bit of television and movie interest. But I'm so cautious to put my trust in anything. I've had too many bad boyfriends to trust anything in the world. But there's the possibility of another book, about this other evil character.
Which one?
The obsession promoter. I think there's a lot of them in Provincetown. This kind of guy who art-directs the world, so it seems teeming with romance around you. He swims 2 miles in the morning, he has a dog named after a Flannery O'Connor short story, he built a house out of driftwood. He's just perfect. He has tools. And then you realize that he's been playing you and 17 other guys at the same time. He's just promoting obsession. That's another characteristic of our age -- people advertising love instead of being in love.
Why is that?
It's successful. The same reason why the Underminer's successful. A lot of interviewers have asked me how to get rid of an underminer, and I don't think you can. That's the way the world is. You just have to learn to live with it.
Louise Kennedy can be reached at kennedy@globe.com.
The Theater Offensive presents Mike Albo’s "My Price Point" at the Boston Center for the Arts’ Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont St., Thursday through April 30. Tickets: $24-30. 617-933-8600; www.bostontheatrescene.com.
