In his superb new special, “Thief of Joy,” which premieres on YouTube on Friday, the comic Gianmarco Soresi struts around a stage in front of a curtain, a piano, a classical column and other props that evoke a high school drama department after rehearsal has ended and everyone has gone home.
Declaiming in a flamboyant style worthy of his Bob Fosse T-shirt, Soresi, 36, tells us he was an actor before a comedian. “I’ve shared the stage with some people who’ve gone on to be massive real estate agents,” he quips.
Soresi boasts that he is what is known in the theater as a triple threat. He points out, with a hint of self-regard, that the first threat is that he can act. Then he belts out the second threat: He can sing. “Threat No. 3 …” he announces triumphantly, pivoting into a soft shoe, dancing from one side of the stage to the other, raising his knee into a right angle and delivering the punchline, “I’m annoying.”
This elaborately established (and enunciated) misdirection nicely captures his aesthetic, marrying the flair and showmanship of a Broadway baby with the ruthless irreverence of a club comic. It’s a funny mix of cringe and cutting, try-hard and eye roll, lip-biting emotionalism and cynical snark. We tend to think of the stand-up comic as the natural enemy of the theater kid. But Soresi makes them seem like old friends, a complementary double act.
The line between theater and comedy has been blurring over the past decade. American comedians have increasingly stood out by shaping their jokes into a narrative arc, putting on solo shows that are more ambitious thematically and emotionally, sometimes at the expense of laughs. That’s not what Soresi is doing here. If anything, “Thief of Joy” represents a breakthrough for him because of its commitment to the craft of jokes.
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