Can a performer be quietly electric?
I believe so. Jerrod Carmichael is so real and raw here I was tempted, towards the end, to lace my fingers over my eyes and hold my breath in suspense.
In 'Rothaniel,' director Bo Burnham perfectly sets the mood with a long opening shot of Carmichael gradually coming into focus walking along the street under a light snow before entering a dim, hushed Blue Note.
The opening, the stage set, Carmichael's demeanor-all spoke of what was to come even before he opened with, "I want to talk about secrets."
For 57 minutes that felt like a lightning strike eternity, Carmichael spilled, interwoven with jokes, very funny commentary, amidst a two-way conversation with the crowd that made his bare intimacy much warmer than just stand-up meat. Long-held family secrets, personal secrets, real fear.
The fact that he may've fought tears toward the end (I cried briefly), to me, only burnishes the fact that Carmichael is funny as hell here. If you have ever been estranged from a parent, or hit with family secrets so deep they made you question who you are, you may just laugh even harder. I did.
