Heather McMahan believes that at any airport in Chile you can learn a lot about society.
There's a rush of people watching, and there's also mozzarella sticks, lava cake, margaritas and a salsa trio with chips. For McMahan, it's the benefits of touring the country and her love of travel. Moreover, it fuels McMahan's love of watching ordinary people being “funny, ridiculous, frustrated, unfiltered, messy, wrong and right.”
“Yeah, you're on the road, you're writing stuff, you're performing all the time, you're honing your craft, but you also have to go sit at Chili's sometimes and just eat a mozzarella stick and a margarita and think, 'What is life?'” McMahan said. “Because you can get caught up in your own story and your own life, you always have to go out somewhere, and that’s why I travel so much… I like to just live life.” [because] you’ll never have new material if you don’t make mistakes.”
McMahan's “Bamboozled” tour, which hits the Orpheum Theater on Nov. 1, will be her third national tour, and she's taking on new material that adds, builds, moves and sometimes changes each show from city to city. The stand-up comedian and actress has had two comedy specials in recent years, including Netflix's The Son I Never Had, where she discussed her journey through in vitro fertilization, or IVF, and Hulu's The Breadwinner.
The Times caught up with McMahan to talk about her tour, the intersection of comedy and politics, how she expresses her emotions on stage and how she thinks about authenticity.
What are you most excited about for your upcoming shows?
I'm having a lot of fun on this tour. This is my favorite set of materials. The Bamboozle tour just went dark, with uncontrollable fun, and obviously we played some of my favorite cities. I'm playing in Dallas and heading back to Lexington, Kentucky where I filmed my first Netflix special. And now I'm heading back to the Orpheum in Los Angeles, one of my favorite places of all time. I had a lot of fun. My first comedy special was about the loss of my father and I turned it around in a comedic form. And then the last episode was all about the details of my first year of marriage and this big honeymoon that I had, this huge wedding. And this is really just a hodgepodge of the most vulnerable – in a super funny way.
People don't always want to talk about politics, so you decided to jump into the fray a little. What gives you the confidence to go out there and try to make jokes about the space we're in?
I'm not talking about the politicians themselves. I'm talking about the social circles that we find ourselves in and navigate, and we all navigate families and get crazy phone calls in the middle of the night from your old sorority sisters and things like that. I can really only talk about this from my point of view, from my point of view and also from a woman's point of view, and as a Southern woman, I'm very outspoken and I love to make people laugh. There is so much humor here because I know that everything that is said at my country club is said in other circles. And it's like I'm just saying all the things you might say in your mahjong group, but I'm saying it out loud.
McMahan's material turns personal issues—her father's death, her IVF experience and marriage struggles—into comedy that helps viewers feel less alone in their pain.
(Full photo by Mike Quinlan)
How do you think comedy can help people think about politics and politics?
My whole job is to observe and then analyze things that make us uncomfortable or conversations that might make us anxious and talk about it, right? You need to rip off the Band-Aid and talk about it. I may not always say the right things, but I will at least listen to that little voice in your subconscious that says, “I feel that way too.” And then peeling back the layers of the world we're in, especially America, it's so crazy it's like we're in an episode of Veep. It's written by some genius comedy writer, but there are some scary elements to what's actually going on. And sometimes I have to go outside, outside the theater, touch the grass and think: what is really happening? But my whole job is to say what we all feel, or maybe we all whisper in our friendship groups, and lay it out on stage for people to digest it and laugh about it. This is the human condition. It's us all coming together and wanting to laugh at absurd, obscene, and uncomfortable things because we're all going through it together.
How would you describe Southern humor compared to, say, Hollywood humor, New Yorker humor, or Midwestern humor?
Southern humor a little bit, you know, we always say that in the South we don't gossip, we have prayer requests. We have a really interesting way of making you think about things without you realizing that we just said it right to your face, but in a real southern sweet way. I don't want to say that we all have such different humor, but I know that Southern women can get away with saying a lot of crap to your face that you don't even know they just said, like in New York humor, they can be a lot more sassy and say it straight to you. Southern humor, sometimes you have to sit down and walk away, did she just insult me? And you're like, yeah, yeah, she did it.
How is your grief affecting your comedy right now?
The grief never ends. It's always changing. And just when you thought you were past one stage, you went back and went back to denial, right? I try to call my deceased father every tax season and say, “Well, he'll know if it's a write-off.” And then I was like, oh, he’s been buried for 10 years. This forms the basis of my comedy, because life is life. There really are days when you're just trying to keep your head above water, you're just trying to figure it all out, and grief hits me in the wildest, strangest places. I could be at Costco and get a rotisserie chicken and for some reason the fact that they haven't changed the price of a hot dog at Costco concessions. You know, I'm like, “My dad and I used to go to Costco and buy a tablet full of computer equipment for his office,” and now I'm eating rotisserie chicken, a $1.50 hot dog, and a Diet Coke, and I'm losing my sh*t. It hits you at the most random moment.
When it comes to grief, your marriage and the way you think about your life, what have you had to learn to let go of to get to this point?
As a comedian, I feel like we have the healthiest way to deal with it – because immediately when we feel it, I think I can get up that night and work through it in a comedic way, work through those feelings. I don't think there are any feelings that I wouldn't give vent to. There are probably some feelings and thoughts that I should keep to myself, but for me, how I truly heal is by standing up and making jokes about it, standing up and talking about it. If I can connect with an audience member who is also going through the same thing or has been through it, like my after-show meetings where, you know, men and women come up to me and say, “Hey, I lost a parent,” or “I went through this,” or “My husband does the same thing,” that's why we do it. It's a human connection. So being able to say what I want on stage, to be free of that feeling, I don't think I'm holding anything back.
Your Hulu special came out last year. Have your ideas about what it means to be a breadwinner changed at all?
No, it hasn't changed. I have friends who may not make as much money as their spouses, or vice versa, and everyone is out there hustling, grinding money and burning the candle at both ends. This year I had to find moments where I actually started saying no to certain things. And there is power in saying no. There is power in slowing down a little. There is power in self-care. I felt like early in my career I had to hit so hard while the iron was hot that I literally became paralyzed with sciatica in both legs because I jump so many planes. I'm lucky to have run a million miles and be a Delta 360 member, but there are times when I think I could really take this weekend off and just take care of myself and take an Epsom salt bath. So I do think there are times when I just think: It's okay to take care of yourself, and it's okay to say no to things. We don't have to always be on top. It's okay to take one for the team and just relax.
McMahan deliberately exaggerates on stage, believing that comedians heal by revealing the truth and processing life's most unpleasant moments with unfiltered authenticity.
(Mike Quinlan/Full Photo)
How do you filter yourself when you need to know what to share and what not to share?
I'll tell you what, my therapist definitely told me to tighten the reins. I will always share my story and what I go through. I won't talk about the people I love or what else is going on in other people's lives, I'm very protective of that. But my story will always be available. Of course, there are things that I keep to myself, but I always share them after I go through it. When I did IVF multiple times and all these failures, I paid special attention to it and then talked about it online and talked about it on my podcast. I talk too much, period. I'm a comedian. If you ask an actor, he won't tell you anything. And then they go on a press tour, then they say three things about the character and the project they're working on, and then maybe you get some beauty tips. Comics are like I'll literally bleed on stage and tell you my deepest, darkest fears.
How do you define authenticity for yourself?
I was myself from day one. I never had to undergo any formal training on how to peel back the layers and be myself. I've been behind the gate myself, and yes, I've created a lot of characters online, that's how I started. I wore a lot of wigs and played different people. But from the jump it was always about me. And the joke was always about me, even, as I said, about politics. The joke is how did I screw this up? How did I misinterpret something? It always comes back to me. I think I'm at my most vulnerable when I'm performing, when I'm being creative, and I don't think I ever hold back. I think I hold back the most when I'm interviewing people on the red carpet because I know I need to be buttoned up and it's about them. There are times when I'm interviewing someone and then we have a ridiculous conversation off camera that I wish could have been caught on camera. And I really hope it wasn't online, you know? But I've always been myself, period.
