Mo Welch

Hannah Einbinder, Raanan Hershberg and Mo Welch all take tricky approaches in their quests for laughs.Hannah Einbinder, ‘Everything Must Go’(Stream it on Max)Bathed in moody lighting beneath three grand chandeliers, the comic Hannah Einbinder performs her jokes the way models strike poses: with dramatic pauses and flirtatious flourishes, always alert to the camera. Whereas the fictional comedy writer she plays in “Hacks” feels palpably real, her stand-up persona sparkles with artifice.Einbinder tells us a lot about herself in “Everything Must Go,” her debut special (she’s bisexual, has ADHD, is an ex-cheerleader), but her larky comedy doesn’t feel confessional. It’s not primarily about setups and punchlines either. Her oddball show comes off as a spoof of Hollywood glamour and over-the-top confidence. Directed by Sandy Honig with a visual vocabulary that evokes David Lynch as much as any special, the hour moves between tight close-ups and a long shot that makes the comic look like the inhabitant of a dollhouse. You hear the audience, but don’t see it as anything other than an undifferentiated mass. Continually breaking the fourth wall, Einbinder at one point looks away from the crowd, toward the camera, and makes a face as if to say directly to us: “Can you believe what’s going on?” Her idea of a transition from one joke to another is asking: “Would you believe that reminded me of something totally unrelated?”There’s a self-indulgence in this knowing style that will alienate those looking for quick and familiar laughs. And her dramatic pauses can adopt the rigid pacing of a movie trailer. But there’s something exciting about a young performer operating at her own comic frequency. While some bits need her charisma to put them over, she has a couple of standout jokes, including one that presents humanity as a toxic husband and climate change as planet Earth “recognizing her worth and filing for a divorce.”Einbinder has a shape-shifter’s gift for voices and illustrates the climate change metaphor through the movie “My Cousin Vinny”; her impression of Marisa Tomei shows off her actorly range. Like the whole special, the humor comes from how unexpected it is. There’s nothing dark about her presentation until the end, when the curtains close and Einbinder, standing alone backstage, collapses in a heap as the credits roll.Raanan Hershberg, ‘Brave’(Stream it on YouTube)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More