The goal of the late-night comedy format has changed dramatically since the 1960s: delivering comics, stories, celebrity interviews, and playing live music in the living rooms of every American home. But the experience has never been more beautiful than what Stephen Colbert did Thursday night.
Earlier in the day, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced a blocking of more than 500 people’s gatherings, with the goal of suppressing the spread of coronavirus, which has now reached the epidemic level according to the World Health Organization. The ban has forced New York City's New York City parade to close, with other institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Carnegie Hall closing their doors. The walk also affected New York-based nighttime shows The Forgetting Game. When the curator took the stage on Thursday night, he did so with a few of his writers in the audience. His band leader, Jon Batiste, was sitting next to him, beating the piano to fill the dead air at times, but other than that, Colbert was there in the wild and lonely with jokes that might not have come. No studio listeners, no automatic laughs, no safety cords. The result was unbelievable.
"We just lift it, don't we?" he agreed. “This is happening now, which can be a good thing. In my mind, all my jokes he is perfect. The only person who disagrees with me is the audience. You can't contradict me now, will you! ”
In preparation for the unpleasant experience, Colbert said he goes back to the old songs of Steve Allen, the founding father of the format who lived on the piano and had Jack Kerouac read quotes from On the street. The opening for the audience was not at all esoteric – Colbert still attacked at the closing of the NBA and issued his own opinion of Trump – but it's not like the rest of the TV. The comedian would sit at his desk, pause for laughs out of nowhere, carry the wonder of it all, and occasionally be stranded in hidden shops under his desk. Every time he stepped up to something new, he took a deep breath of "the show must go on."
The gonzo method worked. Even in what seemed like strange times, such as when he was stretching when Colbert compared the qualities of his mixed drink with the pistols of Batiste, the elderly keeper (who danced the same dance to Colbert exhibition during the 2008 writers' strike) survive the inevitable discovery of the audience. He just knew his qualifications would work. And they did.
Next week, Colbert will be back without an audience, and he might as well restrain himself as one of America's toughest times. At present, there is no word on when the government will open a New York gathering agreement.
Jimmy Fallon also played without an audience.
