Nick Sun – Tear Out Your Eyes (FringeTIX)
Nick Sun @ The Garden Shed
10:45pm, Tue 19 Feb 2008
Tonight’s audience was the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen at a Nick Sun show – around thirty people. Apparently, most of them were leveraging BankSA free tickets. Judging by the blank stares and lack of interaction, I’m guessing most of them won’t be raving about Sun the way I do.
I love Nick Sun. To me, he’s Australia’s greatest living comedian. Actually, I don’t even know any decent Australian comedians who are dead, so – to me – he’s Australia’s greatest comedian. But there’s a big caveat with that statement. The fact of the matter is that comedy – indeed, appreciation of any art-form – is entirely subjective. I love Nick Sun’s work, and I know that at least 95%of the population will hate him. I love Nick Sun because he’s funny, yes, but more because of the journey he takes.
And it’s an uncomfortable journey. Full of blank stares, uncomfortable silences, and constant apologies. There’s plenty of familiar Sun-isms from previous shows; the constant self-loathing, the empty addresses to the audience, the critic assaults. But there’s something more…
Sun is clearly unprepared. But does it matter? I could be called hypocritical for denigrating Charlie Pickering for being unprepared, while not doing the same for Sun. But while Pickering has a structure to his performance, and uses the assembled throng as a diversion, Sun clearly riffs off the audience, letting them dictate the direction of his destruction. There’s less structure here than in his previous performances, less rambling monologues, and he’s constantly searching for the next avenue to explore. He walks amongst the audience, begging them for interaction. He even digs his workbook out, as ramshackled and disheveled as the rest of the show, and reads material directly from it. It’s drawn out, it’s painful, and sometimes you want to look away, but that’s what I love about this guy. That he can stand up there and be the focus of so much empty indifference demands major respect. That he presents himself every night for psychological destruction is either the epitome of courage or the height of stupidity.
As with last year, it was my intention to see Tear Out Your Eyes twice – the opening show and the closing show. The Coherent Show and the Burnout Show (as per 2006). But tonight… bloody hell. This sure felt like a burnout; it felt like we were watching something approaching self-immolation.
Bring on March 15, I reckon. It’s going to be a bonfire.