Radio talk-show host Stephanie Miller’s “Sexy Liberal Comedy Tour” made its Florida debut last night at the Parker Playhouse. Despite no longer having a terrestrial radio outlet in South Florida, Miller’s fans crammed the Fort Lauderdale venue for a nearly sold-out performance.
Miller took the stage for a stand-up set preceded by Hal Sparks and John Fugelsang, two regular guests on her radio show, but the crowd was already loaded for bear before the show started thanks to the dramatic entrance of Alan Grayson, the controversial former congressman from Central Florida who has become a darling of the left. Grayson later joined the trio of political comics for a panel discussion that felt like a live, onstage version of Miller’s radio show.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Miller brought out the best performer of the night as the opening act. I’d never seen John Fugelsang’s stand-up before, but I was blown away. Literate, original, vicious and delivered with George Carlin-esque speed and flawlessness, Fugelsang’s theatrical material was the strongest of the night. He scored high points on a bit touting Jesus’ left-wing credentials, and he ended his set on a breathless Chris Matthews impersonation that was impossible to top.
Veteran comedian Hal Sparks followed, and, as good as he is, he was a greyhound bus crawling behind a bullet train. He was more issue-, message- and solution-driven than Fugelsang, but he was slower to build, with a set marred by too many starts and stops.
Miller picked up the pace, punctuating her set in a way befitting the “Sexy Liberal” theme – by enjoying an extended smooch with her girlfriend Lisa, who attended the show alongside Grayson.
Liberated from the PG-13 shackles of radio syndication, Miller’s material was shockingly hardcore, not limited to several graphic Marcus Bachmann gay jokes (with sex-position visuals), a tea-bagging demonstration and the borrowing of an audience member’s camera to tweet a certain private part. Most of it worked, and she had some of the most memorable one-liners of the night: “Don’t you wish someone would introduce Marcus Bachmann to Charlie Crist?” “Rick Perry is a good Christian: He believes in the father, the son, and, uh…” My favorite image created during her set was that of Ron Paul as “the turd in the punch bowl” – occasionally popping up to speak the truth.
All three comedians made efforts to localize the content, with each of them riffing on Rick Scott’s villainy. But that was part of the problem – they all shared such identical targets that redundancy was inevitable. Sparks even regurgitated one of the jokes from his stand-up set in the panel discussion. Last night was a hilarious evening, and I haven’t laughed this much at anything in months; but, should this tour recommence a year from now, more variety and less repetition would strengthen an already strong comedy revue.
