The mind-blowing comedy of Jacqueline Novak in ‘Get on Your Knees’

Jacqueline Novak’s debut stand-up particular, “Get on Your Knees,” started as an essay she wrote within the early 2000s, whereas an undergraduate at Georgetown College, exploring her “evolving concepts about — and relationship to” performing oral intercourse. The piece developed right into a sold-out, nationwide theatrical tour directed by comic John Early after which a 90-minute filmed model now streaming on Netflix, shot by Sam Levy (“Woman Hen,” Jerrod Carmichael’s “Rothaniel”) and directed by actor Natasha Lyonne. As Novak defined, assist from different artists was important in making a present that really felt like her personal. “Many individuals have helped me with this,” Novak stated. “It’s actually simply fairly gorgeous.”

The present is concerning the expertise of performing oral intercourse, certain, nevertheless it’s additionally about the way to poeticize our on a regular basis existence. Novak “brings actual stakes and gravity and poetry to the mundane,” stated Early. “There are the tiny jokes she’s making inside that exploration, after which there’s the bigger joke that she’s giving this a lot consideration to one thing so basically foolish or pedestrian.”

For Novak, elevating the strange is each the kernel of her jokes and a strategy to endure the world: “The one strategy to tolerate life, our mundane existence, is basically to make it an enormous deal. To make the whole lot a quest.”

Novak’s facility with language and her use of exact and stunning analogies delights all through the particular, together with Novak’s many spirited descriptions of the male intercourse organ. “It springs up below sure situations,” as she paces feverishly backwards and forwards onstage. “That’s why I feel it has the soul of an artist,” she says, including, “When you’re describing a girl unfairly, you’re most likely describing a penis completely. … They’re delicate, they’re all the time reacting to issues, they’re needy, they nag you … The penis is the last word drama queen.”

The rapport between Early and Novak was an electrical issue within the means of engaged on the present. “The friendship stored us from being too formal or correct,” Early stated. “We stored hanging out, and the enjoyable of that was bleeding into the present. It all the time felt prefer it was crackling and popping as a result of we have been simply having a lot enjoyable.”

For Early, it was necessary that Novak keep her directness and conversational tone whereas performing. Being near Novak helped with this intention. “That was the fantastic thing about being each the director and a good friend. I had a really clear sense of when she was veering away from one thing that wasn’t her,” he stated. Novak, too, famous her kinship with Early and his unwavering dedication to her work. “He’s simply such a champion of mine. … Working collectively was very intensive,” she stated. “He’s so die-hard.”

“If I didn’t have [Natasha Lyonne directing], I may see myself panicking and defaulting to this concept of ‘OK, that is the large time, that is the one, you gotta get it proper, that is tv, child,’” Novak stated. “You positively want somebody to maintain you from these issues.”

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)

Comic Mike Birbiglia, who produced the primary theatrical run of Novak’s present on the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York in 2019, has been an advocate of hers all through her 20-year profession. “He inspired me from day considered one of doing stand-up. I may fill a guide with pearls of comedy knowledge from him,” Novak stated. Birbiglia praised Novak’s distinctive voice. “What’s so particular concerning the present is it has such particular language that she arrived at over years and years and years of revising and revising and revising to get it to be precisely what she needed it to be,” he stated.

Lyonne’s influence on the Netflix particular was monumental. Her references for the look of the present included Robert Altman’s “Nashville,” D.A. Pennebaker’s “City Bloody Corridor” and “Richard Pryor: Stay on the Sundown Strip.” Novak even refers to her film-expert director as “Cinema Man.” Most necessary, Lyonne says she acted as Novak’s “protector” — a phrase each ladies used — within the course of of constructing the present. In keeping with Novak, her first comedy particular simply may have taken on a “flawless,” overly TV-fied sheen if Lyonne hadn’t helped safeguard the work.

“If I didn’t have her, I may see myself panicking and defaulting to this concept of ‘OK, that is the large time, that is the one, you gotta get it proper, that is tv, child,’” Novak stated. “You positively want somebody to maintain you from these issues.”

The lighting of “Get on Your Knees” is a key instance of how Lyonne stored it from turning into overly “excellent,” to take care of, as she known as it, an aesthetic of “gritty New York by means of high-level intentionality.” For the particular, Lyonne and Novak selected to have the comedian adopted by a highlight as she stalks the stage. Novak defined that they have been initially discouraged from utilizing the next highlight, “as a result of it’s tough and also you get shadows that may be distracting.” Novak and Lyonne didn’t thoughts. “We have been like yeah yeah yeah, we like that! Let’s have the bizarre shadows of me,” Novak stated. “Whenever you select to have one thing that you could’t fairly management, you get stuff that’s lovely, that you just couldn’t have made in case you tried. We thought, ‘Let the sunshine do what it’s gonna do.’”

These touches of surprising texture within the particular steadiness the years Novak spent fastidiously honing the present, deliberating over each choice, together with diligently modifying the closed captioning textual content. “This was the comical model of myself, which additionally occurs to be form of actual, pondering — ‘For time immemorial, the phrases should be proper for the folks,’” Novak stated jokingly. “Like what, is T.S. Eliot not checking the transcript?” Lyonne significantly admires Novak’s consideration to element. “It’s very cool when folks take their work very severely. Particularly within the enterprise of jokes,” she stated.

Novak’s particular consists of many spirited descriptions of the male intercourse organ. “It springs up below sure situations,” as she paces backwards and forwards onstage. “That’s why I feel it has the soul of an artist.”

(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)

As a veteran actor, Lyonne simply recognized with Novak’s ardour. “I’m a extremely seasoned pirate. I’ve been by means of the wringer many occasions, come out the opposite aspect many occasions. I actually know what it’s prefer to care, know from my guts what it’s prefer to have these emotions of, ‘I gotta nail this factor.’ I’m simply attempting to guard the child genius,” she stated.

Lyonne’s purpose was all the time for Novak to be happy. “This present is about her. This isn’t about me. This has received nothing to do with me. It’s about defending that imaginative and prescient and that textual content and that particular person. And ensuring that she has the time to dial in one thing extraordinary.”

A parallel between directing and parenting was express for Lyonne. “As a barren girl,” she quipped, “I actually love watching the youngsters come up and being there for them. It’s very primary. We ultimately lose curiosity in ourselves and achieve curiosity within the issues that aren’t the self.”

Lyonne says she too benefited from a motherly Hollywood sherpa when Amy Poehler took her below her wing. “Poehler actually skilled me effectively,” Lyonne stated. “And I can see this form of pay-it-forward transference. There’s a lineage there. My gratitude for Poehler permits me in some small strategy to know the way to do the identical with Novak.”

The particular is a product of Novak’s expertise, dedication and, as Lyonne says, her “huge mind.” It’s additionally the results of benevolent inventive buttressing alongside the way in which, notably from Early and Lyonne. “They’re giants. I’m very fortunate that I’ve charmed them,” Novak stated.

It’s astonishing what number of unbelievable jokes are packed into this debut particular, alongside a lot intelligence and that means. As Lyonne put it, “That is positively her opus. Or at the very least her first opus.” She additional added, with reverence, “I don’t even know if it’s a present about [oral sex] if I’m being trustworthy. I feel it’s principally extra of a framework for an explosion of genius.”