San Diego's Top Weekend Arts Events: 'Cats' And Comics

Speaker 1: 00:00 This is KPBS mid day edition. I'm jade Hindman too modern, but very different comedy greats are in San Diego. Ali Wong and Mark Marin. On today's weekend preview. We'll learn a bit about each comedian plus the musical cats is back with new staging and costumes. KPBS arts calendar editor, Nina Garren joins me with your weekend preview. Hi Nina. Hello. So comedian Ali Wong is in San Diego this weekend. Remind us who she is. She's a comedian from the bay area. She got very popular doing standup around Los Angeles. She has a big southern California fan base. She was kind of a known for a long time, but she was always doing shows like best week ever on VH one or Chelsea lately. And now she is actually so popular. It's one of the hottest tickets in town and she's performing a total of seven shows and I think they're all sold out. So tell me, why is she so popular? Speaker 1: 00:55 You know, she's the kind of comic that's just been working so hard to get a following, starting small and getting bigger and bigger. And then what really put her in the spotlight where these two Netflix specials, Allie, Long Baby Cobra and hard knock wife and she talks about marriage, motherhood, growing up, Asian. She just kind of like tells it how it really is like a dude and make no more effort. I don't want to wear a thong underwear anymore. I want to be free to not wear a thong underwear. I just want to wear little boys underwear because that's what fits. I don't know what that pocket in the front is for. That's just where I put my keys when I run. Speaker 1: 01:46 And she's moving from standup into other areas too. I understand. She's working on a show with Tiffany Haddish. Yeah, so she's actually a writer on fresh off the boat. She's an actress on ABC's American housewife and now she's doing an animated show by the creator of bojack horseman called Tuka and Birdie. This is the one with Tiffany Haddish. I was about two birds who are Sassy best friends. Think kind of broad city, but animated Ali Wong performs tonight through Sunday at the Balbo with theater and on Monday night at the civic theater. Switching gears now to mark Marin. Mark is another popular comedian performing this weekend. Can you describe his comedy? Yeah. Mark Baron has a whole other energy from Ali Wong, like Ali Wong is very confident and sure of herself. And Mark Marin has kind of agitated and angst-ridden. Um, he has been doing standup for more than 30 years. So that's kind of his act. He knows exactly what he's doing on stage and most people know about Mark Mayer and from his popular interview podcast WTF. Let's listen to a clip of Mark Marin. This is him with Conan O'brien talking about social media. That is work. You know, I have to put myself out there in the world. How are we all on Facebook and Twitter or you want you on both? Yeah. How was that? Why Speaker 2: 03:00 we're grownups? Are we not grownups seven year old emotionally? I mean, how did you ever have that moment where you aren't sitting there on Facebook and you're updating your status and you realize, oh my God, every status update should just say with somebody, please acknowledge me. Speaker 3: 03:14 Yeah, you just wait it out. Yeah. Not a bad idea. Mine would be or just if everyone just, Speaker 2: 03:24 I'm still alive. Well, you know, just send that out to people. Every now and I just sat there waiting. Then all of a sudden, second, Speaker 3: 03:29 Yay, I win. Speaker 1: 03:32 Mark is also expanding his comedy into TV and film. Where else could people know him from? Mark Marin had a scripted TV show on IFC called Marin and he is also on the Netflix TV show called glow where he plays Sam, Sylvia, and he's going into movies. He's going to be in the joker origin story coming up in the next year. Interesting. I understand. You already saw his performance last night. How was it? It was great. He, like I said, it is a little bleak. He talks about global warming and vaccinations and politics. So you really have to be prepared for a political night and maybe a little depression, but it is awesome. And I loved it. And Mark Marin performs tonight and Saturday at the American comedy company. Finally cats. The iconic musical is back in San Diego. Is this the same tour that's been going around since the 1980s it is and it isn't. Speaker 1: 04:30 It's been updated. It has new costumes and it has choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler. He did the choreography for Hamilton and in the heights. It's based on a book of poems by Ts Eliot called me old possums, book of practical cats. It's kind of these cat poems turned into a story about gelical cats trying to be reborn. And the show is basically each cat telling you a little bit about themselves. So why has this show endured for so long? What makes it popular? Sometimes when I see this show, I have no idea what's going on. And it's just so bizarre and I think that's kind of an appeal. But also it is such a great show for dancing. The dancers are amazing. They're really athletes. Let's listen to a song from the Broadway revival. This is the opening number gelical songs. Speaker 3: 05:25 Yes ma'am. It was commissioned the spoon, you know, cancer is the kind of show that Speaker 1: 05:48 people love or hate. You saw it earlier this week. What side of the battle are you on? I used to not like it, but I think, I think it helps to go in prepared know that it's based on these poems and if you do go in knowing a little backstory, then you might end up liking it. And you know, you also started a new online feature inspired by cats. Tell us a bit more about it. Yeah. The first time I saw cats, as I said, I was not prepared. I was just put in the theater and I didn't know that the cats, we're never going to stop singing and I didn't know what was going on and I hated musicals for a long time after that. So I thought this time it's coming to town, I want to prepare people. So I wrote a family friendly review that kind of breaks down the plot, the runtime, what kids might like, but they might not like. And you can find that on our site. kpbs.org very nice. Cats continues at the civic theater through Sunday. For more weekend events, be sure to check out k pbs.org/. Arts I've been speaking with Nina Garren, KPBS arts editor. Nina, thanks for joining us. Thanks. Have a good weekend.