-Our next guest is a talented writer and comedian
whose critically acclaimed
one-woman show "Get on Your Knees"
is running at the Cherry Lane Theatre now.
Please welcome back to the show, one of our favorites,
Jacqueline Novak.
[ Applause ] ♪♪
-[ Laughs ]
Thank you. Thank you.
-Welcome back!
I'm so happy we get to have you with a regular chair
and everything. -My chair.
Sorry, I called it my chair. -Well, I think that the people
who have seen you here before do believe
that it's fair for you to call ownership of a chair
-Thank you. -that you have graced us with before.
I want to open with some positivity, which is your show
-Thank you. -has been extended
to July 31st. -Yes. And, actually,
this is the formal announcement. I brought it here.
-You did?! -Yes.
-We're breaking news? -We're breaking news.
It should be live right now online
at getonyourkneesshow.com.
That is the title of the show, as you're familiar.
-We've talked about, in a way,
both the joy and difficulty of discussing
the show here on network television.
This is a philosophical rumination
-Beautiful, Seth. -about oral sex.
-Yes. And, specifically, you know,
the kind related to the...
cylindrical object...
-Yes. -...the...phallic sort...
-I think that's a good way of saying it.
-...you know, versus the other.
That's -Right.
-been entirely left. I shouldn't say other.
I'm really just splitting these binaries.
-[ Laughs ]
-Oh, God, it's good to be here. I got to say.
-Let me ask a question. -Yes.
-Or let me make, instead of asking the question,
a statement. -Yes, please.
-I feel as though, when I
reached the university level,
there were a lot of books where people said,
"Oh, if you really read James Joyce, you know,
oh, you know, they're actually talking about, oh, sex
in a way that's, you know,
for the heady amongst us." -Yes, yes.
Thank you. -I feel like that's what you're doing every night,
in a way that's a lot funnier than James Joyce.
-Okay, thank you. I'll take it. -Yeah.
You're a modern Joyce. -Oh, my.
-Plus laughs.
-Thank you.
[ Laughter ]
-Let me just sit and soak that in for a minute.
I come here to be complimented primarily.
-Well, I hope you're enjoying it, so far.
-I'm doing my usual lean, my aggressive lean-in,
which, you know, might be a bit --
-I don't know what to do anymore
because, see, I used to feel
like there was also the pull of the audience,
so I was leaning both ways
and, now, I feel as though you're my North Star.
-I am your North Star, actually.
Now, this is going to be good for us.
I have so many things to say,
I could barely -- I don't even know what to do.
I'm like I'm excited.
I actually think there is something to our audience
truly being the audience at home.
-Yeah. -Because you know how I feel
about television being important, right?
And being on the small screen,
that sort of thing, being tiny, in their living room.
And so it's actually nice
to really have it be about you people, you know.
[ Laughter ]
I just wanted to get all the cameras,
just in case I happen to get it wrong, you know.
-The good news is they're a full
30 seconds behind where you point.
[ Laughter ] -That's hysterical.
-And no matter how much you try -That has to be true.
-to telegraph it, you're -- -I know. I know.
-There we go.
[ Laughter ] Shouldn't the light?
Anyway, I'm just learning the tricks of the trade.
-I want to ask about this. -Please.
-Do you have live audiences
-I do. -back, wearing masks?
-Wearing masks, fully masked.
-I hope I don't get in trouble with what I'm saying,
but your show is, again, it's about oral sex
and I have done just a little bit of live performance
since things opened up again. -Yeah.
-I found audiences to be at the ready.
-Oh, very. -They're very happy to be out.
I don't want to tie it too close to the theme of your show,
but it does feel as though there is a bit of a release
for people to be amongst one another, laughing again.
-Yes. No, I think it's great for me.
They seem very happy to be there,
which is a good baseline for starting a show.
And then, I don't mind the masks, really,
I have to say. -You don't?
-I might even institute a policy of keeping them
for the rest of my performing life.
I mean, I don't know.
What it does for me is it takes some
of the pressure off of their expressions
and I think maybe some of the pressure they feel to,
you know, make me feel safe the whole time.
-I think you're right.
-They can just relax. -I hadn't thought of that.
-They can just stare. They can give me kind of nothing,
but still be enjoying it, you know?
Like I saw one guy who I thought --
Like I sort of clock, you know, I try to keep it going,
stay in the moment, of course, stay present.
[ Indistinct ] want to go, "Alright, I'm not sure
they're really enjoying it.
Alright, I'll check back in in a little while.
Have I won them over yet? No," you know, and then,
I started to go, "Alright, well, maybe there's just
a lot happening down here that I'm not seeing,"
and I was alright with that.
-Well, that's so good for me to hear
because I, having seen you onstage,
I find you to be an incredibly confident performer
who gives off the air of not particularly caring
where the audience is at, at any given moment.
But it's nice to hear and I think
all performers need to hear that.
You are also sort of... -Full of terror.
-...yeah, clocking the audience constantly?
-Yes. Well, I had a problem in the past,
in previous runs, where I'd get it in my head
that someone either -- This is one example.
This one happened one night. Someone either
looked a lot like Larry David. Did I tell you?
Have I told you this? -[ Laughing ] No.
-Looked a lot like Larry David
or could, perchance, be Larry David.
Then I spent the entire show
thinking of every bit I did, going,
"Would Larry David think this was funny?"
And going like, "I think Larry would find this funny."
I've had it a couple other times,
like where I think someone's in there and,
on the off chance they are, I feel myself catering.
No, but I am always full of terror
-Yeah. -and it's like there's
that one story of Laurence Olivier or whatever,
that like he threw up before every performance,
you know, 'til the end,
and that's that thing where I'm comforted by that.
-Oh, it's so helpful to hear people tell you the truth
about their own terror. -Yes.
-Last time you were here in person,
you were about to go on tour.
How far into your tour did you get
before COVID? -A single date.
-One show? -Yeah, one show.
And I was so prepared.
I was carving --
You know the big, hard-shell suitcases?
I had these old ones and I was ripping out the nylon
and putting Velcro up
and creating this entire sort of like touring...
-Oh, wow. -...you know, like setup
where I could grab all my chargers and all my batteries
and just like so much tech and I was like ready.
And then, obviously, we were at home for a year.
Which is great, too. I was honestly really proud
that I had dates on the books to cancel.
-Yeah, you're right. -You know what I mean?
Like I was like, "Look at me.
[ Laughter ] Look at me.
I'm a real operator."
I was like, "Sorry, everyone.
My, um, my shows were, of course, canceled."
I was like so proud and then, it took me
like a couple of weeks to be like,
"Oh, it's kind of a bummer that I'm not
getting to do these shows right now."
-Again, this was a show you did a lot.
-Yeah. -I mean, like everyone who is performing,
you had to take a long break
without doing it in front of an audience.
Did it come back easy to you?
It's a very -- -Dense.
-It's a very dense show. -Yeah, yeah. It's dense.
There's a lot. I mean, the good thing is,
if you skip something in it, it kind of doesn't matter
because I go into everything in such detail
that no one thinks something didn't sound like
there was enough detail. -[ Laughing ] Yes.
-I'm usually lingering too long
on a given idea. [ Laughs ]
But, no, I'm actually
aggressively building memory palaces.
This is one of these techniques
that I get into in my -- -Wow!
You know, where you lay things out
along the journey of your hometown.
Oh, I drive down the street and then there's the first joke,
sitting on, you know -- -Have you always done that?
-I'm always like looking for a new strategy.
So it'll be like the night before opening night
and I'm reading the memory palace book
-[ Laughs ] -like it's going to help me now.
And then, I got some rings -- clearly none --
but I got some rings
that we're going to be visual cues.
I was going to have the entire set list,
like fifty rings on my hands and just be like,
"Oh, people just think like this is my new style."
-You're a ring guy now. [ Laughs ]
-I'm a ring guy now.
A couple earrings. I just like, "How can I cover my body?"
So, no. It never comes back. Never comes back.
I don't know how I've done the show so many times
and still feel like I don't know it.
Even though it's "in me."
[ Raspily ] "It's in you, you know. It's in you."
-Did you spend time -- I think this was
-Yeah. -a burden that a lot
of performers put on themselves
over this time that they had offstage.
Can you workshop a show like yours,
when you don't have an audience to bounce it off?
-Well, so I filmed or taped every show
that I did, you know, every single night,
which is an old habit, stand-up habit,
with the intention that I would go through
every single performance, line them all up
in "GarageBand," okay? Literally.
Sorry, Part of the Mac suite.
-[ Laughs ] -I don't know how to apologize for it,
despite its hideous chrome -- Anyway.
Its brushed chrome round edges are like very embarrassing.
Anyway. So I was going to line them all up,
chop them all up, and then line so it'd be like
joke A gets to be next to joke A, joke A, joke A,
and compare every single one.
And then, I did that for about two days,
then forgot I had started that project,
and then, a year passed.
-[ Laughs ] -So the answer is no.
But, artistically, I think more energy went into merch.
I've realized that sort of the evolution of the show
is really as a vehicle for merchandise
and I'm fully working on that.
There's T-shirts. There's totes. -Oh, that's exciting.
-Oh, for traveling. -Because I've seen the show,
but nary a tote after. -I know.
I'll get it tote over here.
-Oh, that'd be great. -I'll get a tote sent over.
Yeah, I'm really just a traveling salesman, now,
I think, is kind of where it's at.
I am going to Boston, by the way.
I should get that in. Going to Boston in September
to do the show. -Where are you going to do it?
-The Emerson Colonial.
-That's fantastic. -Yeah.
-That's really exciting. -You're going to finally be able
to use your Velcro'd-up suitcase.
-Exactly. Exactly. -Yeah.
Well, I for one, can't wait to see it again.
-I can't wait to have you again.
-It is truly one of my favorite
stage performances from the last five years.
And so lovely to have you back.
Thank you for making time. -Such a pleasure. Thank you.
-This is Jacqueline Novak.
Her show "Get on Your Knees"
is at the Cherry Lane Theatre through July 31st.
We'll be right -- She's going to stand up now
and she's going to show you the full dress.
We'll be right back with more "Late Night."