Chris Gethard: Career Suicide NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (120)
See it if you enjoy honest, vulnerable looks at the darkest points of human experience: depression, addiction, suicide. Funny and moving.
Don't see it if you prefer traditional stand-up comedy or plays. Steer clear if you want an evening of escapism rather than hard-to-hear truths.
See it if Sensational, humanistic, funny handling of taboo topic of personal depression. Gethard's sly, engaging persona eases discomfort level
Don't see it if If mental illness/addiction issues strikes to close to home. Still, serious yet empathic & at times hilarious tone yield upbeat results
See it if You like stand-up. You or someone you know suffers from depression. You want to see stand-up in a non-drinking atmosphere.
Don't see it if You have no empathy. If you believe that all a person needs to do is "snap out of it". Read more
See it if you suffer from depression, or know someone who does, or just want to understand depression better.
Don't see it if you dislike shows about mental illness. Read more
See it if you like seriously funny solo shows addressing seriously unfunny topics; if you want to see a beautifully crafted solo show
Don't see it if you find frank discussion of suicidal ideation, depression, addiction, ocd, etc to be triggering; if you need conventional plot/characters
See it if you enjoy simply-staged one-man shows and understand the human impulse of finding humor in serious, life-or-death situations.
Don't see it if the idea of making fun of depression and suicidal impulses is offensive to you.
See it if You want to laugh until you almost pee... but also "get" that the subject matter is serious, relatable & heartbreaking. This is a solo show.
Don't see it if You're looking for conventional - non-challenging - comedy.
See it if Poignant and funny. Deftly provocative re: dark but socially pressing issues (suicide and mental health), with humanity, respect and humor
Don't see it if This is a great one-man, autobiographical show. Sensitive subject matter handled delicately and masterfully.
Critic Reviews (22)
"In a sense, the show is a freeform therapy session in which the audience serves as proxy therapist. It’s clear that there can be worse things than laughter as a way of confronting one’s demons. I wasn’t consistently on his comic wavelength but I appreciated even those moments when I didn’t howl along with everyone else...Although much of what he says is poignant, he maintains an upbeat charm, avoiding pathos by seeing everything as comic fodder."
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"'Career Suicide' is neither funny nor theatre. It is stand-up which would best be served at a comedy club...Hearing about bouts of depression, alcoholism, OCD and anxiety, treated by an incompetent therapist, who enables these illnesses, is not funny. It’s sad and a little unpleasant...The problem with this show is we are, in a strange way, asked to be Mr. Gethard’s enablers...Director Kimberly Senior doesn’t help the piece as she makes it seem interminably long."
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"'Career Suicide' is the live equivalent of a book you can’t put down. His stories are not just strung together end to end, they’re seamlessly choreographed...This is vulnerability at its barest, and his story is riveting, it’s compelling, and it’s also really, really funny...There are heart-wrenching moments in Chris’ stories that may bring you to tears, but be assured, the laughs are equally powerful."
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"The taboo-smashing honesty he brings to the stage may well save his audience...Never maudlin, he wrenches hilarity from snippets of his life...With a performer this prolific, it's easy to believe you know his story. 'Career Suicide' goes deeper, breaking open the places Gethard kept hidden for years by staying so frenetically busy that he wouldn't have to face needing help...Gethard gives us permission to bring our own demons into the light."
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"A revealing and personal account of living with depression. One of the great things about his show is that he gives us both a happy ending and no easy answers…With great wit and presence, he takes us through living with a depression that he first noticed when he was 11...Gethard makes it all add up to a gripping, beautiful hour. It’s amusing rather than hilarious, but its openness and its vividness leave you with a happy hum of connection."
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"Even by the standards of today’s mental-health-conscious comedy, Gethard’s show is intimate and explicit…Gethard’s openness and frankness are affecting, and he has built a comedy set around them with considerable skill and good humour…What is bleakly funny – and beautifully articulated by Gethard (with help from the Smiths) – is how broken we become, how far from dignity and capability we fall, when depression takes a grip."
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"Few manage to combine laughs, emotional heft and compelling stories in quite such a classy way as this quietly captivating American…'Career Suicide' is more than a collection of candidly funny stories from the dark moments of his life, leavened by larger-than-life personalities...Serious threads that run through the hour tie together in important messages that avoid the pitfall of mawkishness simply by being true, while adding to the rich and satisfying narrative structure."
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"A show that has near universal appeal…It’s a brutally earnest show…In less capable hands this could have been mawkish or solemn, but it’s tackled with enough humor and detached irony that it really works. It is funny and poignant in equal measures. Gethard isn’t a bombastic comedian, he is a considered storyteller…It’s a show that resonates with people and at times I could hear sniffling…It’s hilarious and moving, and a hour that many will really get a lot out of."
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