Review: Mort Sahl at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway

Mort Sahl will perform at Jimmy Tingle's tonight, August 24, and Saturday, August 25, at 7:30 pm. He will also perform Sunday, August 26, at 3:00 pm. For more details, visit the Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway website.

After 80 years on this planet, comedian Mort Sahl knows what he likes. V-neck turtlenecks sweaters, for starters. Current events. People with a sense of humor.

What Sahl doesn't like became wonderfully apparent during his performance at Jimmy Tingle's, which runs until Sunday. He doesn't like the wishy-washies in the middle, the ones who try to have their politics both ways. According to Sahl, these types are Social Democrats who sit on the fence between right and left "pretending to be reasonable! The people at WBUR!"

The older, liberal audience howled with laughter, but the laughter had a nervous edge. Sahl isn't afraid to slay a liberal cow or two in the name of a greater cause. The core element of "Mort Sahl Saves the World" involves Sahl taking large, sticky-backed images of leaders' heads and slapping them on a whiteboard following a certain pattern. He places them at various points in the political spectrum, from the far left (Karl Marx) to the far right (Dick Cheney). A wasteland of social democrats, like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, wind up in the middle.

But Sahl doesn't use his show as an excuse to hammer on candidates who don't live up to his idol, JFK. Sahl takes all presidential aspirants to task because, to him, they just don't have a sense of humor anymore. He fondly recalls the leaders who had that rare sense of humor, such as Alexander Haig, secretary of state under Reagan. Haig doesn't seem like the sort Sahl would like except that Haig knew how to crack a wicked good joke once in a while.

And Sahl knows how to crack a good joke himself. His setup and delivery were excellent, although at times his jokes seemed almost too rehearsed and well timed. Occasionally, he seemed to turn to name dropping and would just throw references to Sally Field into the mix. But these are minor quibbles because Sahl's show manages to mix relevance, intelligence, and humor - the inspiring blend for many comics today.

Image of Mort Sahl courtesy of Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway website.