LOS ANGELES – For Comics on the Rise Hannah Einbinder, his parts serve more than just laughs. She says her jokes are a coping mechanism she uses to process the difficult topics she covers in her material.
Einbinder, known for combining Jean Smart quick wit and comedic timing in “Hacks,” released his debut stand-up special at Max on Thursday to critical acclaim. Throughout her set, she tackles several difficult subjects, including sexual identity and climate change.
“Climate change is something I think about every day when I look out the window at the Earth in front of my eyes, so it’s something I definitely wanted to address,” Einbinder told the Associated Press. “It’s just something that oppresses my conscience and that’s why I write about it.”
Einbinder says he thinks about “pretty much everything through the lens of comedy,” adding that the habit is a “classic coping mechanism” or “survival instinct.”
The special, “Everything Must Go,” was the product of constant touring and workshops as Einbinder took the show across the U.S. and abroad. She says audiences would tell her “pretty quickly” if a joke was dull, and she would constantly refine her comedic bits to figure out “what lines stick.”
“My jokes are too long,” she adds. “Every joke is very long, and they have lasted much longer. This is as short as I made them – they are too long and still cut. I write a lot and then trim, but yeah, just keeping the stuff that feels high octane and that’s good enough to stick around.”
In one memorable part, Einbinder sings a Hebrew song to highlight a story, which she says is genuinely true. She said she knows the timing is unconventional for a stand-up special, but she likes to lean into it.
“This is a choice where I choose to create tension and ultimately build it up to a certain point and build it up to a certain point — and then release it,” she said.
The “Hacks” star, who is the daughter of the “Saturday Night Live” alum Laraine Newman and comedy writer Chad Einbinder also said she’s not afraid to incorporate her more personal stories on stage because she’s “kind of an open book.”
“All comedians present themselves exactly how they want to be seen, which I think isn’t always a very vulnerable thing, actually,” she said. “It’s actually like, ‘This is my version of me, this is the heightened version of me. This is the most packaged version of me with a bow.’”
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Lefferts reported from New York.
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