Hannah Gadsby’s ‘Woof!’ barks again but with less bite (Off Broadway review)
7 / 10
It may be unreasonable to expect continued innovation from a comic whose signature work was such a mold-breaking masterpiece, one that paved the way for a whole subgenre of comedy rooted in breaking down trauma in artful and darkly comic ways. Gadsby insists that their creative well of personal tragedy hasn’t run dry — “There’s a whole herd of baby reindeer I could slay for your consumption,” they say in yet another Netflix reference — but there’s a sense that Gadsby is no longer as interested in dredging up fresh anecdotes of despair. Been there, bled that. What we’re left with are playful, artfully phrased riffs on familiar themes like lesbian culture, autism, social media, and contemporary U.S. politics that feel like they might have been discarded pages from the notebooks for past shows.
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