During the recently concluded 2nd edition of Zoofest, there was one show so overwhelmingly perplexing that instead of laughing about the jokes told on-stage, audience members walked out dazed, uncomfortable and even debating the legitimacy of the content. The show in question is – of course – Kim Noble Will Die.
For those who missed it, Noble’s one-man act saw him looking a bit like Heath Ledger’s Joker (right down to the white face paint and blazer) and wandering about the stage, discussing how little joy there seems to be in his moderately successful existence as an entertainer. A bucket of laughs it was not.
Most comedy performers weave bits of their personal lives into their acts to gain sympathy or just to relate to the crowd. We’re all used to hearing a comedian joke about how their parents hate them, or their ex broke their heart or their cat died… but how many actually ask the audience to text harassing messages to their former lovers, or require their mother to record a talking head video of insults to be projected onto a bucket throughout their show? How many play the audio from a private conversation with their girlfriend as she reels from a recent miscarriage? When it comes to opening up, Kim Noble stands apart. He doesn’t just tell you about his personal life – he makes you a part of it in a big way.
Which brings us to the question of boundaries. It’s one thing for the audience who paid to attend his show to be exposed to more than they bargained for; it’s quite another for a random stranger to walk into the frozen foods section of their local grocery store, pull out a boxed TV dinner and discover a frozen puddle of ejaculate awaiting them underneath the cardboard. Noble regularly cuts pages out of biographies and replaces them on the bookstore shelf with his own personal messages. He also returns DVDs to the video store with home-made films inside the cases. Doesn’t this all fall under the category of performance art, then?
In performance art, the boundaries tend to be less clearly defined than they are in comedy. Mirror columnist Rick Tremble described the human centipede in the movie of the same name (essentially a line of people whose mouths are sewed to the anus of the person in front of them) as a “living, breathing performance art sculpture”. In short, even a mad scientist in a movie can claim their cruelty to be artful.
Noble isn’t quite mad… but his performance does require an impressive amount of synchronicity and timing, as props fall from the ceiling and videos intersect with his monologues. Aren’t they always saying how the crazies are the ones with the best organizational skills? There’s certainly something cruel about showing footage in which he and friend (who went on to commit suicide) repeatedly slice themselves with razor blades. What’s the intent, other than to shock? Is this about exorcising his demons or tormenting the crowd?
Seems Noble himself might be unsure. In a recent interview with Nightlife magazine, he stated: “I don’t stand up and tell jokes” and “… the show is comedy, but it’s also theatre, art and other things.” If there’s more of the “other things” than jokes, what then is he doing at Zoofest?
Though their mission statement is to showcase odd and unusual comedy acts – the types of things you wouldn’t even be seeing at the Just for Laughs festival – Zoofest really stepped out on a ledge with this one. To be fair, at least two audience members walked out glad they’d seen the show and impressed at Noble’s ability to stir up conflicting emotions within the crowd. It must also be said that the audience got a kick out of seeing Noble hand out cash to several individuals only to then take a twenty from one girl and shred it. It was a cute bit – one of the few – but this audience member felt compelled to offer her the fiver he’d received from Kim during the performance. Nice try Noble, but you can’t bribe a critic.
Perhaps the only thing that can be said for certain is that when you pay to attend a Kim Noble show, you’re really spending money to participate in his own personal form of therapy. So basically… buyer beware. I won’t always be there to reimburse you.
