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So he tries to create a lot of space between them.
That Mulaney who was addicted to substances?
Hes certainly related to the guy standing onstage, but hes not quite the same.
But Mulaney attacksBaby Jless like a product of creative consideration and more as if hes examining a severed limb.
He is so entirely, confidently unruffled.
His sharp suit and shiny dress shoes are back; hes on the big Boston Symphony Hall stage.
The act has returned, but this time its fine!
See, look theres so much distance!
We can laugh now!
Hes too present, his emotions and flaws too visible.
In that sense,Baby Jis a work of crystal clarity.
Detailed recovery retellings along with a mortifying story about what he did to get cash to buy drugs?
From way up in the mezzanine, that looks like vulnerability, baby!
That does seem to beBaby Js ostensible intent.
The other the trailers tagline, a wide-ranging conversation works in the same way.
This hyperaware detachment is a constant.
Likability is a jail!
he sings, miming the doff of a hat.
The kid is named Henry, and hes 11.
Everyone gathered in the theater and around their screens knows this is what theyve all come to watch.
The clean man admits he has never been clean.
When I was a younger man, Id come out onstage and be like, Hey!
Ba ba ba ba-ba!
Mulaney leaps around the stage, making the line a sped-up vaudevillian patter emptied of meaning.
And I wonder what causedthat, he says as the audience laughs.
Except his new vibe isntthatdifferent.
Sure, the content has changed.
(Theres a story about doing coke off one of the diaper-changing stations in a public restroom.)
Worse, it could so easily look like a performance of authenticity rather than a display of vulnerability.
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