New York Fringe Festival Report: \'This Too Shall Suck\'

By JASON ZINOMAN

Reviews of shows from the New York International Fringe Festival will appear on ArtsBeat through the festival's close on Aug. 26. For more information, go to fringenyc.org.

According to urban legend, the greatest basketball players are always the virtuosic playground stars who squandered talent that can be endlessly mythologized. If only So-and-So didn't get injured or fall prey to drugs or whatever other tragic flaw, he would have been, the story goes, better than Michael Jordan. Similar stories float around the comedy world, but since the shelf life of a joke-teller is longer than that of an athlete, a heroic comeback is always possible.

That's what's so intriguing about “This Too Shall Suck,” a solo show by the comic Matt Graham, who hasn't performed for eight years. Mr. Graham's precocious stand-up got him jobs in the 1990s as a writer on “Late Night With Conan O'Brien” and “Saturday Night Live” but als o the respect of comedians like Marc Maron, who did a riveting (and sometimes disturbing) interview with him on his podcast this year.

This funny, oddball, occasionally awkward autobiographical show covers some of the same territory: leaving comedy, struggling with dating, attempting suicide. But Mr. Graham reveals more of his comic gifts here. His material is dark, but always eccentric enough to find new spins on old jokes.

When describing dying onstage, he refers to the “resounding sound of noses being picked.” His description of hard times is refracted through a comedian's mirth: “I was living paycheck to paycheck, only without the paycheck.”

Mr. Graham, trim and angular with short, graying hair, has a fascinating story beyond his comedy career, since he had equal if not more success playing professional Scrabble, ranking second at the world championships. And while the show's transitions are sometimes abrupt and stilted, creating more a series o f set pieces than a shaped narrative, he is never less than engaging.

On the podcast, he occasionally came off hostile with a sexist streak. He's more sympathetic here, less angry. And the descriptions of his relationship with his grandmother as well as with his cat demonstrate a capacity for love and regret. You could say that “This Too Shall Suck” shows him in a less unvarnished light than the podcast did, but I don't think that's right. Each format has its own conventions, and neither leaves us with a true understanding of this mysterious man. As he says flatly, “Fact is: I'm just a very weird dude.”

“This Too Shall Suck” continues through Saturday at the Huron Club, 15 Vandam Street, near Varick Street, South Village; (866) 468-7619.