Comedian Vir Das wants audiences to know they’ll be “going across the world” during his new show, “Hey Stranger.”
“If you’ve never traveled outside America — which is a lot of American people — this is it. I’m gonna take you to Africa,” he said. “I’m gonna take you to London. I’m gonna take you across America, and I’m going to take you to India in a very short span of time.”
Das is an internationally acclaimed comedian, actor and author, noted for weaving current events and storytelling into his comedy. He has released five Netflix specials, winning an International Emmy Award for Best Comedy Series for “Vir Das: Landing,” released in 2023.
Das will play Madison’s Orpheum Theater, 216 State St., as part of his world tour on Feb. 28. Tickets start at $42.
Das’s jokes arrest audiences with their poignancy and ability to highlight truths, sometimes drawing ire from those in power. In 2021, he shared a monologue at the Kennedy Center called “I Come from Two Indias,” composed of a series of two seemingly incongruous but true facts.
“I come from an India where we worship women during the day and gang rape them at night,” he said in the monologue. The video went viral, and a handful of Indian officials called for his arrest. Now, that performance has outlived the Kennedy Center itself.
Das’s new show is about exploring the world and sharing space with strangers — he believes there’s a freedom to being in a room full of people you don’t know.
“For one night, we have complete freedom,” he said. “And if nothing else, I’m going to make you a Bollywood fan by the end of the show.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are some of the themes you’ll touch on in your show?
I wrote a memoir last year (“The Outsider”) which is (about) self-exploration. I realized I’ve spent 85% of my life in rooms with people I don’t know, and that is pretty much the exact opposite spectrum of human life.
But if you consider what a stand-up show is, I think there’s something tremendously powerful to (being with) people you are never going to meet again. There’s freedom. They can change your life, they can profoundly alter the course of your life, and they can destroy you far more than the people that you love.
Do you have examples of how strangers have changed your life?
There’s a lady called Susan who worked at a gas station in Alabama, where I used to buy all my groceries. This is a few years after 9/11 — one day (she) showed up with a bicycle at my house. She was like, “You’re going to get killed out there walking on the street as a brown man with a beard.”
There’s a professor who took me from an economics major to a theater major. There’s a producer who put me in my first movie. There’s an immigration agent who, when I was stuck on a pier in Mexico and my ship was leaving, let me catch another ship back to American waters.
It’s a bunch of crazy stories from all over the world, but the narrative of it is: If your life is a movie, (this show) is an ode to the background extras in the movie.
You talked in a past interview about the idea of doing things scared. I wonder what that means for you.
I don’t have fans in the sense that American comedians have fans — I have an audience, and you should live in a healthy fear of disappointing your audience at all times.
To me, my favorite part of a show is not the entry music or the applause, but when the lights go down and you hear 3,000 people shuffle, put their phones away, check with each other, sit up and rest their feet, because that’s pressure.
To me, that’s the moment that I harness energy from, before I get on stage. So you typically find me in the wings, 20 minutes before a show, just speaking at the audience, waiting for that moment, capturing that energy.
Comedy, in some sense, is a battle between me and you, the audience member. Only one of us will win that night.
Say more on that.
Well, laughter is not an expected reaction. It’s an involuntary reaction. It’s a surprise. So I am trying to pull something out of you that your mind has signed up to do, but your body effectively doesn’t want to.
A laugh is like a sneeze or a cough, right? And so I’m trying to pull that out of you 600 times. If I’m telling the truth, that’s unsettling you. If I’m beginning with the truth and going somewhere really absurd, which is the comedian’s trick, that too is unsettling. So I am unsettling you for an entire evening. But why would you pay money for your own thoughts?
I said this in my last special: The comedian just says words. The audience tells the truth. So if your laugh is uncomfortable, you’re telling a bigger truth than I am.
What do you hope audiences will receive from you in the show?
I wrote jokes for this set, saying, ‘If you had no idea who I was … and you stumbled into this venue, or you were sleeping with an Indian person who dragged you to this venue, or one of your friends is an audience member who likes me and dragged you to this venue, could I write a show that made you feel seen?’ And that’s really what I’m trying to do with this show.
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